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COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 


COLLEGE 
AND  THE  FUTURE 


ESSAYS  FOR  THE  UNDERGRADUATE  ON  PROBLEMS 
OF  CHARACTER  AND  INTELLECT 


EDITED  BY 

RICHARD  RICE,  Jr. 


CHARLES  SCRIBNER*S  SONS 

NEW  YORK  CHICAGO  BOSTON 


Copyright,  1915,  by 
CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 


TO 

My  Nephew,  Richard  Rice,  3D 
IN  the  hope  that,  when  he  enters  college  a 

generation  hence,  he  WILL  FIND  THERE  A  TRUER 
EXPRESSION  OF  THOSE  IDEALS  WHICH  THE  AUTHORS 
OF   THE  FOLLOWING  ESSAYS  HAVE    SEEN    FROM  AFAR 


THE    PLAN  OF  THE    BOOK 

"  There  is  no  enlargement,  unless  there  be  a  compari- 
son of  ideas  one  with  another,  as  they  come  before  the  mind, 
and  a  systematizing  of  them.  We  feel  our  minds  to  be 
growing  and  expanding  then,  when  we  not  only  learn,  but 
refer  what  we  learn  to  what  we  know  already." 

— Cardinal  Newman. 

The  object  of  this  volume  is  to  present  a  set  of  essays 
which  form  a  close  sequence  of  ideas,  a  little  philosophy, 
about  the  present  interests  and  the  future  problems  of  the 
undergraduate.  It  is  hoped  that  he  may  find  in  them  a 
series  of  facts  and  opinions  that  will  be  naturally  produc- 
tive of  further  opinions  and  investigation  on  his  part. 
The  chief  intention  of  the  book  is  to  be  gathered  from  the 
order  of  the  essays,  which  enables  the  writer  of  themes  to 
proceed  from  one  discussion  to  another  logically  resulting 
discussion,  accumulating  thought  instead  of  "writing  him- 
self out"  in  rather  scattered  and  casual  efiforts.  Owing 
to  the  variety  of  the  materials,  which  illustrate  many  kinds 
of  writing,  he  has  an  unusual  chance  to  gain  true  impres- 
sions of  manner  and  method,  because  he  can  here  see  what 
different  styles  do  for  the  drift  of  the  same  general  argu- 
ment. The  essays  make  chapters  of  a  book  that  may  be 
read  from  cover  to  cover  as  a  unit. 

A  brief  commentary  will  serve  here  better  than  else- 
where to  describe  some  of  its  practical  uses  as  a  text  for 
courses  in  writing. 

vii 


viii  THE    PLAN   OF   THE   BOOK 

I  and  II.  The  two  preliminary  articles,  which  consti- 
tute Part  I,  deal  with  the  general  question  of  learning  to 
write,  and  may,  it  is  hoped,  clear  up  certain  perplexities 
which  sometimes  long  encumber  the  student.  What  is 
style?  What  is  technique?  What  is  originality?  What 
are  some  of  the  practical  methods  for  organizing  detail,  for 
raising  expectation,  for  guiding  the  reader,  and  for  main- 
taining an  eflfective  tone?  The  discussion  of  these  points 
looks  forward  specifically  to  the  subject-matter  of  the  essays 
which  follow. 

Ill  and  IV.  Articles  III  and  IV,  of  Part  II,  contain 
descriptions  of  Oxford  University,  from  which  the  student 
is  expected  to  form  his  opinion  of  an  institution  widely 
different,  in  all  probability,  from  his  own.  To  write  a  par- 
allel account  of  life  at  his  own  college,  to  compare  the 
two  places  in  detail  as  regards  athletics  or  scholarship,  to 
give  his  chief  reason  for  preferring  one  place  to  the  other, 
are,  for  example,  exercises  that  will  naturally  suggest  them- 
selves to  him.  They  are  exercises  that  will  test  the  logic  of 
many  of  his  prejudices  and  prove  to  him  the  difficulty  and 
the  profit  of  forming  opinions  fairly  from  an  array  of  facts. 
He  may  supplement  these  facts  by  such  reading  as  is  sug- 
gested in  the  little  bibliography  at  the  end  of  the  volume. 
Here  at  the  start  he  is  asked  to  think  justly  and  vividly 
about  a  set  of  ideas  and  customs  which  are  new  to  him,  and 
which  make  a  sharp  criticism  of  the  ideas  and  customs  he 
has  always  accepted.  This  teaches  him  to  see  the  essential 
character  of  the  place  he  lives  in  and  prepares  him  to 
understand  and  to  criticise  the  point  of  view  of  many  of 
the  succeeding  articles,  especially  of  the  next  three,  which 
deal  with  the  general  objects  and  advantages  of  liberal 
education.  If,  after  reading  them,  or  at  some  later  period, 
he  is  asked  to  discuss  again  the  relative  merits  of  Oxford 


THE    PLAN   OF   THE    BOOK  ix 

and  his  own  university,  there  will  at  once  be  apparent  a 
new  and  more  vivid  picturing  of  what  both  Oxford  and  his 
own  college  really  are. 

V,  VI,  and  VII.  For  meanwhile  many  questions  have 
come  up.  What  do  we  really  go  to  college  for — what 
combination  of  social  and  intellectual  training?  Which 
of  these  two  objects  best  includes  the  other  ?  What  is  the 
difference  between  character  and  intellect?  After  reading 
President  Wilson's  essays,  should  one  regard  the  qualities 
of  character  discussed  by  Professor  WilUam  James  as 
"by-products"  of  education?  What  is  for  most  men  the 
valuable  "by-product"  of  the  college  course?  How  closely 
is  it  related  to  the  training  of  intellect?  These  are  pretty 
heavy  questions,  and  they  should  be  approached  through 
illustration  and  personal  experience.  In  this  way  there 
may  be  avoided  a  certain  monotony  and  ineffectiveness 
which  comes,  in  undergraduate  writing,  from  a  tendency  to 
generalization  and  mere  assumption.  Properly  answered, 
these  questions  teach  one  how  to  bring  experience  and  evi- 
dence of  all  kinds  to  bear  in  such  a  way  as  to  give  both 
solidity  and  relief  to  abstract  argument. 

VIII  and  IX.  In  the  midst  of  this  general  discussion  of 
the  purposes  and  ideals  of  college  life,  it  seems  well  to  in- 
troduce a  test  case,  about  which  nearly  every  student  will 
have  his  own  definite  opinion.  What  is  the  importance 
and  influence  of  sport  in  college  life?  Is  the  example  of 
phenomenal  athletic  skill  more  inspiring  to  college  stu- 
dents than  the  example  of  wide-spread  athletic  habits? 
Will  not  emphasis  of  the  second  produce  the  first,  and  em- 
phasis of  the  first  diminish  the  second?  Articles  VIII  and 
IX  put  before  us  information  and  opinions  which  are  sure 
to  call  out  a  good  deal  of  prejudice  and  a  good  deal  of 
pointed  explanation.     It  is  probable  that,  relative  to  the 


X  THE    PLAN   OF   THE   BOOK 

three  preceding  essays,  the  writer  has  already  committed 
himself  in  a  general  way  on  the  issues  here,  and  he  must 
now  attempt  to  be  both  outwardly  consistent  with  what  he 
has  already  said  about  the  objects  of  college  life,  and  true 
to  his  own  convictions — for  many  students  a  stimulating 
process  of  thought.^ 

X.  The  essays  on  the  function  of  athletics  in  college 
life,  which  are  attempts  to  define  and  to  make  vivid  the 
moral  relation  of  a  single  important  college  interest  to  many 
others,  lead  to  a  general  study  of  what  may  be  called  the 
balance  of  interests,  or  the  sense  of  proportion,  in  college 
life.  Professor  Gayley  finds  that  this  sense  is  growing  de- 
fective. Democratic  ideals  have  rather  upset  the  aristoc- 
racy of  learning.  We  have  been  able  neither  to  keep  the 
old  standards  nor  to  make  a  proper  readjustment  to  changed 
conditions,  as  we  have  been  called  on  to  educate  a  whole 
nation  instead  of  a  chosen  few.  In  place  of  ideals  we  have 
thought  it  necessary  to  substitute  idols.  ''Idols  of  Edu- 
cation," from  which  Article  X  is  taken,  is  at  once  the  most 
stimulating  and  amusing  of  books  on  the  trouble  with  the 
modern  college.  It  is  a  sane,  witty  corrective  of  those 
incongruities  and  confusions  in  the  thought  of  college  men 
— trustees,  faculty,  and  students — who  mistake  the  flashy 
and  the  specious  for  the  solid  and  the  thorough,  or  who 
actually  prefer  the  advertisement  to  the  real  thing.  Is 
Professor  Gayley's  satire  justified  by  what  the  student 
has  seen  of  college  life?  What  are  college  "activities"? 
How  does  the  modern  curriculum  compete  with  them  for 

'The  purpose  of  all  these  essays  and  exercises  in  their  specific  order  is 
to  furnish  a  training,  that  shall  be  natural  rather  than  arbitrary,  in  con- 
structive, consequential  thinking;  and  the  critical  emphasis  should  be 
laid  on  the  logic,  the  importance,  the  pxjintedness  of  what  is  said.  The 
effort  to  think  logically  and  pointedly  is  a  positive  cure  for  incorrect  and 
slouchy  diction. 


THE    PLAN   OF   THE   BOOK  xi 

the  student's  attention?  What  appears  to  be  the  value  of 
the  ambition  of  the  "typical  college  man"?  What  is 
college  spirit  ?  What  is  the  difference  between  an  idol  and 
a  by-product  of  a  college  education?  What  ideals  are  per- 
haps idols  in  disguise?  What  is  there  to  say  in  defense 
of  some  of  the  idols?  Can  an  idol  be  improved  into  an 
ideal  ?  The  manner  of  Professor  Gayley's  satire,  humorous 
and  trenchant,  is  a  training  in  urbanity,  in  deftness  of 
touch — qualities  the  most  difficult  to  attain,  but  here  thor- 
oughly appreciable. 

XL  As  a  concise  and  more  arbitrary  statement  of  the 
student's  purpose  among  those  conditions  which  Professor 
Gayley  has  made  humorously  clear  comes  President  Hyde's 
advice  to  freshmen.  President  Hyde  is  speaking  to  the 
entering  class  in  a  hard-headed,  compact  New  England 
college.  Professor  Gayley  had  in  mind  the  infinitely  more 
expansive  and  complex  State  university  of  the  West.  Yet 
are  not  the  problems  of  both  institutions  at  bottom  much 
the  same?  Are  they  not  the  central  problems  described 
in  President  Wilson's  two  essays  ?  What  are  the  differences 
in  college  life  and  the  resulting  differences  in  the  student's 
purpose  described  in  the  essays  of  these  three  men?  Is 
there  really  a  difference  in  the  outlook  on  life  of  a  student 
at  a  small  college  and  a  student  at  a  large  university? 
President  Hyde's  address  describes  the  temptations  and 
the  discipline  of  college  life,  and  what  the  student's  clear 
purpose  should  be,  not  so  much  from  the  ultimate  social 
point  of  view  as  from  the  immediate  point  of  view  of  a 
member  of  a  strictly  regulated  institution  whose  standards 
of  excellence  are  a  precious  inheritance.  It  makes  it  clear 
that  the  ideals  of  a  liberal  education  are  only  to  be  seen 
through  the  efforts  which  a  strenuous  discipline  demands. 
Power  depends  on  a  practical  training  in  obedience.    Char- 


xii  THE    PLAN    OF    THE    BOOK 

acter  and  wisdom  come  only  from  devotion  to  some  im- 
mediate and  practical  demand.  This  address  sums  up 
much  that  has  preceded.  It  leads  toward  what  is  to  come. 
XII.  The  relation  of  the  practical  to  the  ideal,  of  the 
arbitrary  to  the  experimental,  which  is  one  of  the  parts  of 
life  most  important  to  understand  vividly,  is  the  central 
topic  of  the  next  essay,  by  Cardinal  Newman,  on  "Knowl- 
edge Viewed  in  Relation  to  Learning."  It  is  placed  here 
because  it  is  in  all  this  discussion  the  one  topic  that  must 
now  be  fundamentally  treated.  When  the  student  comes 
to  college  and  begins  to  pick  his  way  among  its  complex- 
ities, he  is  constantly  trying  to  decide  what  is  practical, 
what  is,  as  he  says,  worth  while.  The  abstruseness  of  cer- 
tain studies,  their  remoteness  from  any  immediate  utility, 
lead  him  often  to  conclude  that  he  is  wasting  his  time  on 
them.  He  wants  to  see  results.  He  wants  before  his  eye 
what  Professor  Gayley  calls  the  Idol  of  Quick  Returns. 
He  wants  useful  knowledge.  Learning  alone  does  not 
satisfy  him.  There  is  Latin,  still  too  largely  a  grammar, 
not  a  literature.  There  is  geometry,  an  interesting  puzzle, 
but  not  an  applied  science.  There  are  German  and  French 
which  he  may  never  "use,"  as  he  says.  And  history — why 
should  they  spend  so  much  time  over  Frederick  Barbarossa 
and  never  get  to  William  II?  And  there  is  English  com- 
position, useful,  but  perfunctory.  Of  what  are  all  these 
mere  beginnings  the  beginning?  If  it  is  the  beginning  of 
knowledge,  it  is  a  pretty  roundabout  way  of  getting  down 
to  any  facts  of  life  which  he  expects  to  be  called  on  to  use. 
But  in  reality  all  this  is  not  so  much  the  beginning  of 
knowledge  as  it  is  the  beginning  of  wisdom.  That  is  Car- 
dinal Newman's  point.  Large  stores  of  special  knowledge 
are  to  be  gained  in  some  techm'cal  school  where  the  fresh- 
man had  better  go  if  he  must  immediately  learn  something 


THE    PLAN    OF    THE    BOOK  xiii 

that  will  bring  in  quick  results  in  money.  But  if  he  can 
afford  the  time  to  train  his  mind  in  a  way  that  may  after- 
ward make  all  his  knowledge  concordant  and  more  largely 
effective — just  as  team-play  is  more  effective  than  indi- 
vidual action — the  liberal-arts  course  is  the  place  for  him. 
Here  he  may  become  in  a  fine  sense  obedient  to,  and  hence 
in  control  of,  all  the  details  of  his  knowledge.  And  later  he 
will  be  emancipated,  rather  than  somewhat  enslaved,  by 
his  particular  profession.  To  understand  this  relationship 
of  knowledge  and  wisdom,  as  Newman  here  allows  one  to 
understand  it,  is  a  fundamental  experience  for  the  college 
man. 

XIII.  With  more  personal  illustration  the  next  essay, 
on  "The  College  Curriculum,"  brings  these  principles  to 
matters  immediately  confronting  every  student.  There 
are  three  kinds  of  thinking — practical,  imaginative,  and 
moral — necessary  either  to  solve  satisfactorily  the  common- 
est difficulty  of  life  or  to  contemplate  wisely  the  eternal  and 
unsolvable  questions.  It  is  not  advisable  to  train  the  mind 
from  the  beginning  too  much  in  one  kind  of  thought.  In 
the  college  curriculum  these  modes  of  thought  are  called 
science,  poetry,  and  philosophy;  and  every  course  in  col- 
lege emphasizes  one  mode  or  a  certain  combination  of 
them.  How,  in  this  connection,  may  the  three  modes  be 
defined  and  illustrated?  What  is  meant  by  narrow- 
mindedness,  and  how  is  the  usual  course  in  liberal  arts  a 
cure  for  it  ?  How  does  liberal  education  help  one  to  know 
and  follow  his  bent,  and  to  do  what  he  really  wishes  to  do  ? 

XIV  and  XV.  Let  us  now  take  the  specific  instance  of 
a  subject  which  we  must  learn  to  think  of  in  the  various 
modes  of  thought,  from  all  sides,  that  is,  if  we  would  have 
any  fair  view  of  it  at  all.  The  student,  plunged  into  an 
unwonted  freedom  and  variety  of  opinion  in  college,  is  apt 


xiv  THE   PLAN   OF   THE    BOOK 

to  have  as  an  early  experience  there  a  certain  confusion, 
or  loss,  as  he  calls  it,  of  his  religion.  This  is  almost  in- 
variably not  because  he  is  weak  in  faith,  but  because  he 
does  not  understand  that,  in  keen  minds,  religious  thought, 
like  all  other  kinds  of  thought  about  life  which  are  worth 
while,  changes,  is  evolutionary  and  progressive.  In  re- 
gard to  reHgion,  as  in  regard  to  other  ways  of  thinking,  a 
man's  opinions  must  grow.  To  hold  an  opinion  is  to 
understand  its  tendency  to  change,  and  thus  to  allow  its 
full  development  in  one's  life.  To  be  held  by  an  opinion 
is  to  be  bUnd  to  its  evolutionary  quaUties.  Ideas  change 
and  grow  through  the  ages  in  the  minds  of  great  men 
and  are  useful  to  successive  generations.  Ideas  come  to  a 
standstill  in  the  minds  of  small  men,  where  they  persist  as 
obstacles  and  stumbling-blocks.  In  great  minds  changes 
of  opinion  and  of  belief  do  not  upset  the  principles  of 
faith.  In  small  minds,  because  there  is  room  for  no  en- 
larging principles  of  faith,  any  change  of  opinion  appears 
to  be  confusing  and  is  usually  rejected.  What  is  meant 
by  faith?  What  is  meant  by  religious  opinion?  What 
part  does  the  church  play  in  a  personal  religion?  What 
adjustment  must  there  be  between  the  faith  of  our  fathers 
and  our  own  creeds?  How  is  the  principle  of  growth  the 
principle  of  strength?  These  are  questions  partly  answered 
by  the  essays  of  Professor  Colestock  and  Doctor  Peabody. 
A  further  question  should  be  asked,  in  the  light  of  the  pre- 
ceding articles — how  does  the  study  of  science,  poetry,  and 
philosophy  help  to  establish  in  the  mind  of  a  reasoning 
student  a  strong,  reasonable,  enlarging  religious  behef? 

XVI.  President  Meiklejohn's  Inaugural  Address  makes 
at  this  point  an  analysis  of  the  general  problems  so  far  dis- 
cussed. What  is  college  like  as  a  phase  of  life?  What  is 
training  of  intellect  for?    This  discourse  defines  the  broad- 


THE    PLAN    OF   THE    BOOK  xv 

ening  point  of  view,  for  it  describes  college  training  as 
leading  to  an  eminence  from  which  to  look  out  over  our 
complex  world.  What  is  the  wider  function  of  college 
training  and  leisure?  Is  it  to  help  men  re-form  ideals  in 
thoughtful  quiet  before  entering  the  strenuous  life  of  busi- 
ness and  the  professions  ?  Is  it  to  help  men  cultivate  their 
natural  resources  and  their  capabilities  for  the  superior 
enjoyment  of  life?  How  does  college  teach  one  the  art  of 
learning  to  play?  In  this  connection  what  is  meant  by 
thought  for  its  own  sake?  How,  then,  does  liberal  educa- 
tion differ  from  professional  education?  Which  general 
type  may  render  a  man  more  independently  useful  ?  Which 
most  helps  a  man  on  in  the  world?  How  may  technical 
education,  if  not  preceded  or  accompanied  by  liberal 
studies,  tend  to  make  a  man  the  slave  of  his  vocation? 
These  are  questions  which  modern  college  students  are 
constantly  asking  themselves,  which  they  try  to  answer 
from  the  experience  and  counsel  of  their  elders,  and  also 
by  looking  forward  into  life  independently  and  afresh. 

XVII,  XVIII,  XEX,  and  XX.  It  is  thus  natural  to  pre- 
sent next  two  views  of  practical  idealism.  These  two  theories 
of  life,  especially  if  taken  in  connection  with  the  lives  of 
the  men  who  utter  them,  make  an  interesting  and  consist- 
ent contrast.  But  they  are  not  altogether  opposite  in 
tendency.  They  both  emphasize  the  importance  of  getting 
all  the  action  and  enjoyment  out  of  life  possible — or  a 
little  more  than  circumstances  at  first  sight  seem  to  war- 
rant— and  they  are  both  prophecies  of  youth  and  of  the 
spirit  of  our  age  in  its  two  dominant  phases — strenuous 
labor  and  ardent  dreaming.  They  both  represent  the 
reaction  from  what  Stevenson  calls  "cowardly  and  pru- 
dential proverbs."  They  emphasize  the  importance  of 
progress  at  all  cost§  instead  of  safety  at  all  costs.    In  this 


xvi  THE    PLAN   OF   THE   BOOK 

connection  the  two  essays  of  Stevenson  furnish  an  excel- 
lent view  of  the  typical  relations  between  fathers  and 
sons.  From  another  point  of  view,  however,  the  doc- 
trines of  Colonel  Theodore  Roosevelt  and  Robert  Louis 
Stevenson  make  a  distinct  contrast.  One  represents 
strenuous,  pragmatic,  commercial  America;  the  other  the 
criticism  which  an  artistic  idealism  makes  of  all  tempo- 
rary effort  in  a  material  age.  It  is  a  contrast  especially 
illuminating  in  this  era  of  the  great  European  war,  when 
the  principles  of  our  vaunted  Christian  civilization  are 
undergoing  the  criticism  of  brute  nature,  and  when  we 
Americans,  congratulating  ourselves  on  our  democracy, 
our  representative  government,  and  our  present  geographic 
independence,  are  beginning  somewhat  anxiously  to  fore- 
cast the  future.  For  there  already  looms  ahead  the  ques- 
tion of  whether  any  nation,  which,  in  this  practical  and 
commercial  era,  believes  strongly  in  its  practical  and  com- 
mercial ambitions,  must  not  soon  arm  itself  to  the  teeth  for 
their  maintenance.  It  is  the  question  of  whether,  in  the 
evolution  of  this  planet,  commercialism  will  not  mean  just 
that,  so  long  as  it  is  backed  by  the  national  will.  There  is 
national  militant  Christianity  for  a  curious  parallel.  But 
is  this  sort  of  national  will  the  real  will  of  the  people? 
Is  it  not  merely  a  governmental  will?  That  during  the 
leisure  and  idealism  of  college  days  the  good  and  evil  of 
such  matters  should  be  seriously  contemplated  is  of  the 
utmost  importance.  And  here,  the  article  on  ''Thinking 
for  Yourself"  makes  an  interesting  comment  by  defining 
the  practical  relation  of  thought  and  action,  the  two  gen- 
eral attributes  of  the  all-round  man.  It  is  a  comment  on 
the  theories  of  life  set  forth  in  Colonel  Roosevelt's  ad- 
dress and  in  Stevenson's  two  essays.  It  might  be  valuably 
applied  to  the  lives  of  the  two  writers. 


THE   PLAN   OF   THE   BOOK  xvii 

XXL  "The  Discovery  of  the  Future,"  by  Mr.  Wells, 
is  the  statement  of  a  scientist  and  a  novelist  who  has 
described  the  incongruities,  the  muddle,  of  our  modern 
commercial  prosperity.  Realizing  the  muddle,  the  modern 
world  is  all  for  organization.  "Organize  and  we  shall  be 
saved"  is  the  watchword  of  all  commercial  undertakings; 
and  anything,  if  thoroughly  organized,  satisfies  the  modern 
moral  sense.  Do  we  not  all,  for  example,  wherever  our 
neutral  hearts  may  be  in  the  present  conflict,  take  a  great 
satisfaction  in  the  supreme  organization  of  the  German 
people — for  it  is  the  nation  that  is  organized,  not  just  the 
army?  The  virtue  of  organization  we  call  morale.  By 
the  morale  of  a  people,  we  say,  their  state  of  civilization 
may  be  judged.  And  more  rarely  do  we  ask  the  question, 
in  the  light  of  what  ultimate  moral  principle  is  this  morale 
perfected?  Now  we  ask  the  question  rarely  only  because 
we  are  in  the  habit  of  believing  ourselves  to  be  blind  to 
the  future.  If  we  understood  some  way  of  discovering 
the  future,  would  not  that  question  certainly  be  the  cri- 
terion of  value  in  regard  to  any  enterprise?  Would  not 
organization  of  business,  that  is,  be  for  ultimate  moral 
ends  and  less  for  immediate  or,  let  us  say,  national  ends? 
This  philosophy  cannot  be  too  much  emphasized.  We  have 
neglected  it  for  a  blind  materialism,  for  a  stupid  fatalism, 
which  are  much  the  same  thing.  Eat,  drink,  and  be  merry,' 
for  to-morrow  we  die,  is  the  business  man's  motto.  And 
this  is  because  his  to-morrow  is  never  far  enough  in  the 
future.  He  has  left  idealistic  thinking  to  men  whom  he 
speaks  of  condescendingly  as  mere  dreamers.  He  is  not 
sufficiently  aware  that  in  collective  dreaming  lies  the  greatest 
safeguard  of  civilization.  By  what  present  indications,  in 
what  modes  of  thought,  the  discovery  of  the  future  is  being 
attempted,  is  the  subject  of  Mr.  Wells's  discourse. 


xviii  THE    PLAN   OF   THE   BOOK 

XXII,  The  rare  kind  of  thinking  or  social  forecasting 
which  Mr.  Wells  predicts  must  soon  hold  sway,  if  we  are 
to  progress  beyond  the  limits  of  our  present  national  form 
of  civilization,  is  concretely  described  in  the  fantasy  that 
now  follows,  entitled  "The  Great  Analysis."  The  little 
book  from  which  it  is  taken  is  perhaps  the  best  definition 
in  recent  years  of  that  constructive  imagination  which 
long  ago  produced  the  philosophy  of  Aristotle.  It  de- 
scribes the  kind  of  imaginative  wisdom  that  from  now  on, 
even  in  the  face  of  further  war,  must  begin  to  guide  the 
human  will  to  think  of  a  peaceful  world-order.  Among 
the  various  types  of  free  creative  imagination  in  our  era, 
far-reaching  non-partisan  statesmanship  is  the  rare  type 
which  must  ultimately  predominate  and  direct.  It  is 
presupposed  by  the  enormous  progress  of  certain  other 
great  types  of  imagination,  like  the  commercial,  the  me- 
chanical, or  the  medical,  which  surely  cannot  be  ends 
simply  to  themselves.  It  is  presupposed  by  the  very  com- 
plexity of  the  world-order  which  they  create  and  then  fail 
to  safeguard.  It  is  the  all-inclusive  type  to  which  every 
other  is  contributory.  When  the  non-partisan  statesmen, 
historians,  sociologists,  of  the  future  begin  in  earnest  to 
make  the  Great  Analysis,  the  relation  of  all  types  and  their 
importance  will  be  more  clearly  seen;  but  already  we  un- 
derstand how  commercial  and  mechanical  and  medical 
imagination  each  make  progress  in  the  other  more  rapid 
and  more  important,  how  they  combine  for  mutual  benefit 
and  for  the  benefit  of  humanity. 

It  is  the  problem  of  a  world-order  which  we  have  so  far 
failed  to  see  with  any  comprehensive  view.  Imagination 
is  not  yet  in  this  respect  freely  constructive.  The  experi- 
ments of  government  are  so  slow,  and  it  dares  make  so 
few  of  them.    The  present  forms  of  government  are  but 


THE    PLAN    OF   THE   BOOK  xix 

two,  the  autocratic  and  the  representative,  and  neither 
one  appears  to  be  successful  in  combining  different  races 
under  its  rule.  The  Great  Analysis  has  for  its  political 
aim,  as  Professor  Gilbert  Murray  says  in  the  preface,  "to 
find  out  by  organized  knowledge  what  is  good  for  society 
as  a  whole,  not  to  snatch  by  strategy  what  is  good  for  a 
particular  group." 

Non-partisan  statesmanship  is  the  greatest  need  of  our 
country;  for,  in  the  light  of  the  present  conflagration,  it 
can  be  seen  to  be  the  greatest  need  of  the  world.  But 
have  we  had,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  much  statesmanship  of 
any  kind,  except  in  emergency?  Have  we  had,  as  a  gov- 
ernment, steady,  constructive  statesmanship?  We  are  an 
intelligent  people  most  advantageously  situated,  and  we 
have  been  able  to  get  on  without  a  great  deal  of  states- 
manship. But  have  we  not  reached  a  stage  when  our 
problems  obviously  require  the  finest  intelligence  of  the 
country  to  save  us  from  constant  distress?  Why  is  it, 
then,  that  in  spite  of  all  that  our  last  three  Presidents  have 
done  and  are  doing  to  make  political  service  popular  with 
the  finer  men  of  America,  it  does  not  usually  attract  the 
most  cultivated  and  brilliant  of  them?  Is  this  a  serious 
indictment  of  our  politics  or  of  our  intellectual  men?  Do 
they  perceive  their  obvious  duty?  Do  they  think  about 
it  deeply  and  in  large  terms?  Are  Americans  deeply  pa- 
triotic? Trained  theoretically  in  college  for  just  such 
impersonal  problems  as  federal  government  faces,  do  they 
not  seem  to  prefer  almost  any  form  of  money-getting  in 
business,  when  once  successful  there,  to  this  most  intel- 
lectual and  humane  of  callings,  this  most  active  and  excit- 
ing of  enterprises? 

XXIII.  An  appeal  to  college  men  on  this  subject  con- 
cludes our  discussion.    It  is  called  "The  Unity  of  Human 


XX  THE   PLAN   OF   THE   BOOK 

Nature."  Our  discussion  has  led  from  the  conditions  and 
purposes  immediately  about  us  in  college  to  the  conditions 
of  the  vast  world  of  which,  if  we  are  preparing  for  it,  we 
should  have  some  comprehension  at  the  start.  ''The 
trouble  with  the  world  is  its  vastness."  "If  one  could 
stand  on  the  edge  of  the  moon  and  look  down  through  a 
couple  of  thousand  years  on  human  politics,  it  would  be 
apparent  that  everything  that  happened  on  the  earth  was 
directly  dependent  on  everything  else  that  happened 
there."  These  sentences,  one  of  which  stands  at  the  be- 
ginning of  "The  Great  Analysis"  and  the  other  at  the 
beginning  of  Mr.  Chapman's  address  to  the  students  of 
Hobart  College  on  "The  Unity  of  Human  Nature,"  make 
practically  the  same  assertion.  If  the  problem  is  vast  and 
complex  and  in  need  of  vast  and  complex  minds  for  its 
simplification,  the  hope  that  such  minds  are  in  the  making 
lies  in  this  interdependency  of  all  things.  In  the  very 
cause  of  what  seems  at  times  the  hopeless  confusion  of  the 
world  lies  the  means  of  its  constant  betterment,  through 
education.  The  fact  of  the  unity  of  human  nature  implies 
for  all  thinking  men  a  consciousness  of  their  social  obliga- 
tions, and  is  the  ultimate  reason  for  self-improvement 
and  for  believing  in  the  doctrine  of  individualism.  "The 
Czar  of  Russia  cannot  get  rid  of  your  influence,  nor  you 
of  his.  Every  ukase  he  signs  makes  allowance  for  you, 
and,  on  the  other  hand,  the  whole  philosophy  of  your 
life  is  tinged  by  him.  You  believe  that  the  abuses  under 
the  Russian  Government  are  inscrutably  different  from  and 
worse  than  our  own;  whereas  both  sets  of  atrocities  are 
identical  in  principle,  and  are  more  alike  in  fact,  in  taste 
and  smell  and  substance,  than  your  prejudice  is  willing  to 
admit.  The  existence  of  Russia  narrows  America's  phi- 
losophy, and  misconduct  by  a  European  power  may  be 


THE   PLAN   OF   THE   BOOK  xxi 

seen  reflected  in  the  moral  tone  of  your  clergyman  on  the 
following  day." 

It  is  the  unity  of  human  nature  that  makes  the  train- 
ing of  an  individual  American  college  student  such  a  vastly 
important  thing;  for  only  by  extreme  clearness  of  individ- 
ual thought  do  we  attain  the  requisite  for  the  great  citizen- 
ship. What  is  the  world  for,  with  its  vast  and  tantalizing 
problem?  What  is  life  for,  with  its  seemingly  inscrutable 
incongruities?  What  is  college  for?  The  answer  to  all 
these  questions  turns  out  to  be  very  nearly  the  same,  and 
its  full  meaning  is  a  faith  in  the  efficacy  of  the  well-rounded 
mind. 

To  know  so  much  about  life  through  experience,  and 
through  science,  art,  and  philosophy,  which  are  experience 
typified,  that  one  is  convinced  of  the  need  for  bearing  a 
noble  part  in  the  world,  is  the  purpose  of  going  to  college. 
And  the  true  purpose  of  the  college  itself  as  part  of  the 
state  is  to  increase  that  great  society  of  men  and  women 
who  are  dedicated  to  the  principle  of  idem  sentire  de  re- 
publicd — of  thinking  together  about  public  affairs — not  in 
the  sense  of  all  thinking  alike,  but  in  the  sense  of  all  wish- 
ing to  act  with  that  broad  and  generous  intelligence  which 
has  been  inculcated  by  the  same  training  and  which  is 
fostered  by  memories  and  ideals  held  in  common. 

[Note:  At  the  end  of  this  series  of  essays  a  number  of  questions,  on  which 
the  student  has  been  writing,  will  present  themselves  in  a  new  light,  and 
they  may  perhaps  be  worth  rediscussing.  His  mind  is  equipped  for  more 
urbane  and  farther-sighted  argimients,  for  weightier  explanations,  for  more 
pointed  records  of  his  own  experience.  In  the  light  of  President  Hyde's 
brief  characterization  of  Oxford  (Chapter  XI),  and  of  Cardinal  Newman's 
description  of  what  sort  of  outlook  on  life  a  university  ought  to  cultivate 
(Chapter  XII,  Section  V),  and  of  Stevenson's  "  Apology  for  Idlers"  (Chapter 
XVIII),  the  reader  will  very  likely  perceive  the  real  differences  between 
Oxford  and  American  methods,  where  at  first  he  only  caught  at  rather 
trivial  and  superficial  aspects.  Or  he  may  find,  after  reading  "The  Great 
Analysis,"  that  he  has  a  new  opinion  about  Colonel  Roosevelt's  arguments 


xxii  ACKNOWLEDGMENT 

against  peace,  and  about  the  question  whether  empire  is  a  valid  ideal  for 
the  United  States.  When  he  has  finished  Mr.  Chapman's  essay  he  may 
well  perceive  a  new  significance  in  Wilham  James's  saying,  that  the  end 
of  college  education  is  ability  to  know  a  good  man  when  you  see  him. 
Such  reference  of  one  set  of  ideas  to  another  is  the  truest  way  of  deepening 
thought  and  of  producing  that  enlargement  of  which  Cardinal  Newman 
speaks  in  the  quotation  placed  at  the  beginning  of  this  book.  In  this  con- 
nection it  may  also  be  well  to  note  Edmund  Burke's  advice  about  reading: 
"  Reading,  and  much  reading,  is  good.  But  the  power  of  diversifying  the 
matter  infinitely  in  your  own  mind,  and  of  applying  it  to  every  occasion 
that  arises,  is  far  better;  so  don't  suppress  the  vivida  vis."] 


ACKNOWLEDGMENT 

The  editor  wishes  to  express  his  sincere  appreciation  of 
the  generosity  of  authors  and  publishers  whose  permis- 
sion to  reprint  articles  and  parts  of  books  has  made  it 
possible  to  carry  out  the  purpose  of  this  volume.  To 
Professor  Byron  Rees,  of  Williams  College,  and  to  Pro- 
fessor W.  D.  Howe  and  Mr,  F.  C.  Senour,  of  Indiana 
University,  the  editor  is  indebted  for  valuable  suggestions, 
and  to  Mr.  Horace  O'Connor  and  Doctor  Robert  With- 
ington  for  much  help  in  technical  difficulties. 


CHAPTER 


PAGE 


CONTENTS 

The  Plan  of  the  Book vii 

Part  I 


I.    Learning  to  Write. — Richard  Rice,  Jr.        i 

II.    The  Question  of  Style. — Arnold  Ben- 
nett  45 


Part  II 

III.    Life  at  Oxford. — John  Corbin     ...      54 

rV.    Tom    Brown's    Letter    from    St.    Am- 
brose's College. — Thomas  Hughes    .      72 

V.    The  Social  Value  of  the  College-Bred. 

— William  James 78 

VI.    What   is    a    College    For? — Woodrow 

Wilson 88 

VII.    The  Training  of  Intellect. — Woodrow 

Wilson 107 

VIII.    University  Athletics. — Simon  Newcomb    115 

IX.    Panem  et  Cercenses. — Richard  Rice,  Jr.    131 

X.    Idols. — Charles  Mills  Gayley     .    .    .    143 

XI.    An  Address  to  Freshmen. — William  de 

Witt  Hyde 160 

zxiii 


xxiv  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

XII.    Knowledge    Viewed    m    Relation    to 

Learnlng. — John  Henry  Newman  .    .    i68 

XIII.  The     College     Curriculum. — Richard 

Rice,  Jr 196 

XIV.  Losing  One's  Religion:  A  Student  Ex- 

perience.— Henry  Thomas  Colestock    212 

XV.     The  Religion  of  a  College  Student. — 

Francis  G.  Peabody 216 

XVI.    Inaugural   Address. — Alexander   Mei- 

KLEjoHN 233 

XVII.    The  Strenuous  Life. — Theodore  Roose- 
velt   257 

XVIII.    An  Apology  for  Idlers. — Robert  Louis 

Stevenson 272 

XIX.    Crabbed  Age  and  Youth. — Robert  Louis 

Stevenson 284 

XX.    Thinking  for  Yourself. — The  London 

"Times" 299 

XXL    The  Discovery  of  the  Future. — H.  G. 

Wells 302 

XXII.    The  Great  Analysis. — ^Anonymous    .    .332 

XXIII.    The  Unity  of  Human  Nature. — John  Jay 

Chapman 359 

Appendix. — For  Reference 371 


COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 


COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

PART  I 


LEARNING  TO  WRITE 

RICHARD   RICE,   JR. 

/.     The  Nature  of  Literary  Art  and  Its  Technique 

Why  is  learning  to  write  so  difficult?  The  simplest  and 
also  the  deepest  reason  is  because  all  writing  is  done  in  the 
shadow  of  infinite  possibilities — those  of  the  writer's  un- 
known powers  for  thought  and  those  of  the  fine  art  of 
literature.  But  if  this  is  the  reason  why  learning  to  write 
is  difficult,  it  is  also  the  reason  why  it  is  inspiring.  Literary 
art  is  not  inaccessible.  It  is  not  the  achievement  of  profes- 
sionals alone.  It  is  part  of  the  same  energy  which  any  man 
displays  when  he  writes  a  good  letter  or  converses  well  of 
an  evening.  It  is  a  thing  more  and  more  understood  as  one 
observes  life,  profits  by  experience,  and  learns  to  know  him- 
self. It  is  the  art  with  which  we  all  inevitably  grow  more 
and  more  intimate  all  our  lives.  It  may  be  called  the 
technique  of  life. 

Learning  to  write  is  difficult  for  the  same  reason  that  it 
is  difficult  for  a  boy  to  think  like  a  man.  It  can  be  done. 
Little  by  little  it  is  done.  But  to  do  it  outright  is  rare. 
All  this  means  that  learning  to  write  is  but  part  of  learn- 
ing to  grow  up.    For  writing  is  thinking. 


2  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

Undoubtedly  there  is  something  ironical  in  the  fact  that 
at  the  very  time  when  the  world  shines  in  the  most  glowing 
colors  to  our  eyes  and  calls  most  interestingly  to  our  imag- 
inations, we  should  find  ourselves  incapable  of  giving  any 
correspondingly  vivid  and  poignant  account  of  it.  It  is 
curious  to  note  that  one  can  hardly  find  a  prose  record  of 
the  feelings  and  opinions  of  youth  made  on  the  hour,  with 
whatever  degree  of  technical  skill,  which  does  not  lack, 
paradoxically,  the  vital  energy  that  inspired  it,  which  does 
not  shortly  appear  both  to  youth  and  to  time  thin  and 
unsatisfying. 

But  this  aspect  of  the  old  truth  that  what  youthful 
genius  lacks  is  an  art,  the  combining  of  a  wisdom  and  a 
technique  which  requires  time  to  effect,  forms  a  hopeful 
consideration  for  the  student  who  is  still  continually  baffled 
by  the  difficulties  of  "mere  self-expression."  The  fact  that 
the  art  of  writing  is  acquired  only  after  much  practise  means 
also  that  it  can  be  acquired  to  a  great  extent  by  every  one 
who  practises.  The  fact  that  without  an  ever-maturing 
power  of  thought  technical  facility  has  no  lasting  products 
means  also  that  such  experience  and  wisdom  as  may  come 
to  any  man  are  at  the  basis  of  literary  power.  The  in- 
spiring conditions  which  determine  how  we  should  go  about 
learning  to  write  are,  then,  the  possibility  of  definite  im- 
provement through  acquiring  technical  knowledge  and  the 
impossibility  of  power  without  maturing  one's  energy  as  a 
thinker. 

A  great  many  counsellors  have  told  us  that  the  only  way 
to  learn  to  write  is  to  write.  This  advice  emphasizes  the 
fact  that  literary  art  has  a  fairly  definite  body  of  technique 
which  must  be  mastered  by  practise  before  skill  and  facility 
can  be  hoped  for.  Another  set  of  counsellors  has  said  that 
the  way  to  learn  to  write  is  to  read,  to  see  life,  to  enlarge 


LEARNING  TO  WRITE  3 

general  knowledge  and  experience  as  much  as  possible. 
This  advice  often  seems  to  a  beginner  less  definite  and 
satisfactory  than  the  first,  because  it  emphasizes  the  fact 
that  the  art  of  composition  is  the  art  of  thinking  and  of 
growing  up;  and  the  beginner  always  hopes  that  by  the  time 
he  is  perfect  in  the  A  B  C's  he  will  somehow  have  a  supply 
of  thoughts.  But  the  truth  is  that  whichever  advice  he 
inclines  to  pay  chief  attention  to  will  show  the  beginner, 
before  very  long,  the  necessity  and  value  of  also  following 
the  other;  for  the  two  conditions  for  literary  prowess  here 
laid  down  are  so  interdependent  that  they  are  really  one 
comprehensive  condition. 

In  the  practise  of  any  art,  thinking  and  acquired  technical 
skill  must  constantly  support  each  other,  ideas  at  once 
fashioning  their  technique,  and  technique  helping  in  the 
formation  of  ideas.  In  their  final  effects  these  two  elements 
may  scarcely  be  separated.  It  is  hence  unwise  to  separate 
them  to  begin  with  in  the  process  of  learning  to  write. 

Obviously,  it  is  convenient  to  have  a  body  of  special 
advice  about  writing  all  together  in  one  book  of  grammar 
and  rhetoric.  But  this  should  not  give  to  grammar  and 
rhetoric  a  particle  of  the  false  dignity  of  isolation;  for, 
in  any  comprehensive  view,  the  technique  of  correct 
English,  which  one  may  apparently  study  by  itself  in  a 
hand-book,  is  really  nothing  but  a  practical  method  of 
thinking.  Without  thinking  you  say:  "I  see  a  black  ob- 
ject under  the  smoke  which  grows  larger  as  it  approaches." 
Technique  bids  you  think  more  clearly.  You  must  think: 
"Under  the  smoke  I  see  a  black  object  which  grows 
larger  as  it  approaches."  Without  thinking  you  say :  "Be 
sure  that  your  sentences  end  with  words  that  deserve  the 
distinction  you  give  them."  Technique  bids  you  apply  the 
very  principle  you  have  wished  to  express,  and  think  as 


4  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

follows :  ' '  End  with  words  that  deserve  distinction. ' '  If  you 
say,  "In  the  process  of  civilization  I  expect  that  man  will 
find  woman  to  be  the  last  thing  he  can  improve,"  it  is  a 
trifle  ambiguous  and  certainly  a  rather  weak  statement. 
Sir  Austin  Feverel,  whatever  the  truth  of  the  sentiment, 
at  least  knew  sharply  what  he  thought:  "I  expect  that 
Woman  will  be  the  last  thing  civilized  by  Man."  What  you 
say  and  what  you  think  are  really  the  same  thing,  since 
any  slight  change  in  speech  represents  a  slight  change  in 
thought.  Thus  what  you  say  (or  write)  is  simply  the  shape 
of  what  you  think,  and  the  study  of  technique  is  the  study 
of  representative  convenient  and  effective  shapes  for 
thought  from  which  the  principles  of  correctness  and  of 
structure  are  to  be  deduced. 

Now  the  reason  why  learning  to  write  is  so  difficult,  even 
when  the  principles  of  correctness  and  structure  are  well 
in  mind,  is  because  the  immature  will  does  not  easily  effect 
a  junction  between  powers  of  thinking  and  the  knowledge, 
facility,  and  taste  which  have  been  acquired  by  technical 
study.  "I  know  what  I  mean,  but  I  can't  say  it,"  is  one 
way  of  describing  our  common  perplexity,  which  nearly 
always  should  be:  "I  could  say  it,  if  I  could  only  think  it." 
But  however  you  look  at  the  matter,  what  is  here  described 
is  a  lack  of  co-ordination  between  the  various  faculties  of 
the  mind.  In  youth,  what  the  mind  chiefly  lacks  is  a  multi- 
pHcity  of  contacts.  Liberal  education,  or  the  art  of  growing 
up,  may  be  said  to  be  the  process  of  bringing  the  various 
faculties  of  the  mind  closer  and  closer  together,  of  sup- 
plying contacts;  and  maturity  in  any  person  is  expressed 
in  terms  of  the  energy  generated  by  the  extent  of  these 
contacts.  Maturity  means  that  the  various  faculties  are 
thoroughly  contributive  to  each  other,  and  that  they  are 
thus  one  comprehensive  faculty,  the  art  of  thinking.    My 


LEARNING  TO  WRITE  5 

friend,  Professor  Aydelotte,  in  a  chapter  called  "Writing 
and  Thinking,"  at  the  end  of  his  book,  College  English,  has 
expressed  this  matter  as  follows:  "To  write  clearly  one 
must  think  clearly,  to  write  nobly  one  must  think  nobly, 
to  have  a  great  style  one  must  think  great  thoughts.  All 
of  which  means  that  one  must  be  clear-sighted  and  noble 
and  great,  for  as  a  man  thinketh  in  his  heart,  so  is  he.  The 
problem  of  improving  a  man's  writing  is  usually  the  problem 
of  improving  his  character." 

This  thoroughly  logical  statement  places  the  problem  of 
learning  to  write  on  a  high  plane,  and  if  it  is  once  realized 
that  it  must  be  so  placed  to  see  it  clearly,  there  need  be  no 
confusion  simply  from  terminology  as  to  what  is  meant  by 
style,  matter,  technique,  and  thought.  If  writing  were 
mainly  a  technique,  it  might  be  mastered  rapidly  and  com- 
pletely as  one  masters  the  management  of  a  typewriter. 
Because  it  is  an  art,  one  grows  in  it  only  as  fast  as  one  grows 
up.  What  at  first  appeared  to  be  a  definite  set  of  conven- 
tions and  a  definite  body  of  knowledge  in  the  rule  book, 
to  be  utilized  freely  as  soon  as  mastered,  is  soon  perceived 
to  possess  no  value  of  its  own,  and  to  depend  for  vitality 
entirely  on  the  power  to  think.  Literacy  grows  with  the 
demands  of  experience;  we  become  articulate  as  we  develop 
wants.  And  at  length  something  more  than  articulation 
and  literacy  is  required  of  us.  We  must  compete  in  clear- 
ness and  force  and  copiousness  with  the  rest  of  mankind, 
and  for  that  we  must  train  ourselves  in  something  more 
vital  than  mere  conventionalities.  "Mechanical  correct- 
ness," says  Professor  Aydelotte,  "is  not  a  merit  in  writing; 
it  is  only  a  necessity.  It  does  not  in  the  least  imply  that 
the  writing  is  good.  The  absence  of  it  means,  on  the  other 
hand,  that  the  student's  work,  no  matter  how  brilliant  in 
other  respects,  will  receive  no  consideration  in  practical 


6  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

life  until  the  mechanical  faults  are  mended.  Correctness 
of  this  sort  is  like  wearing  a  necktie,  a  condition  of 
entrance  into  good  society,  but  not  an  admission  ticket." 
We  are  never  done  with  conventionalities,  with  attention 
to  the  structure  of  paragraphs,  proper  guides  to  the  drift 
of  thought,  summaries  at  crucial  spots,  brightened  endings 
that  cast  a  light  back  over  the  whole;  but  what  we  notice, 
if  we  are  growing  up,  is  that  these  things  begin  to  grow  out 
of  the  necessities  of  our  thought,  and  that  we  cannot  finally 
conceive  of  technique  as  something  external  to  our  purposes 
in  writing. 

In  the  study  of  any  art  it  is  important  to  keep  this  in 
mind.  The  painter,  the  sculptor,  or  the  musician  may  seem 
to  give  himself  up  for  a  time  more  thoroughly  than  the 
writer  to  technical  study,  to  the  thorough  understanding 
of  the  mode  of  thought  before  using  it  for  original,  personal 
expression.  But  what  the  painter  is  studying  is  thought — 
not  just  ways  of  mixing  and  laying  on  color.  All  technique 
is  the  technique  of  thought;  it  has  no  existence  for  its  own 
sake.    To  forget  this  is  to  be  either  a  pedant  or  a  dilettante. 

The  relation  of  practise  in  technique  to  artistic  execution 
is,  however,  very  generally  misunderstood.  It  is  a  common 
remark,  which  we  have  all  accepted,  that  the  musician 
who  has  once  mastered  his  technique  can  then  forget  about 
it  and  just  create  or  interpret.  It  is  in  this  way  that 
we  like  to  think  of  great  pianists,  especially  if  we  are  our- 
selves still  rather  hampered  in  playing  scales  or  such  a 
carefully  fingered  exercise  as  childhood's  old  friend,  "The 
Spinning-Wheel."  After  hearing  Paderewski,  we  are  very 
apt  to  say  that  he  does  not  have  to  think  about  fingering 
at  all.  We  like  to  say  this,  and  to  believe  it  inadvertently, 
though  we  know  that  a  great  musician  is  always  playing 
his  scaleg  and  that  the  last  thing  he  wishes  to  do  is  to  reach 


LEARNING  TO  WRITE  7 

a  state  of  automatism  where  he  might  be  unconscious  of 
technical  control.  For  his  sincerest  purpose  is  to  make  the 
technique  of  his  art  more  and  more  a  part  of  himself,  and 
to  think  in  its  terms  with  such  facility  that  every  change 
of  thought  will  find  its  exact  expression.  Doctor  Fite,  from 
whose  book  on  Individualism  the  above  illustration  is  partly 
borrowed,  points  out  that  being  thus  facile  is  the  opposite 
of  being  highly  automatic,  and  that  automatism  is  the  very 
negation  of  art.  "Art,"  says  Doctor  Fite,  "aims  above  all 
things  to  be  free."^  Freedom  is  secured  through  complete 
conscious  control,  or  through  practised  obedience  to  law, 
which  is  exactly  the  same  thing.  Only  by  obeying  the 
technical  laws  of  your  automobile  do  you  control  it.  Only 
by  practising  obedience  does  the  musician  have  his  will 
with  his  instrument;  and  when  his  attention  is,  as  we  say, 
wholly  on  interpretation,  it  is  because  he  can  be  aware, 
without  confusion,  of  every  aspect  of  his  performance. 
He  grows  oblivious  to  nothing.  He  relies  more  than  ever 
on  all  the  qualities  that  make  up  his  final  effect.  The  crea- 
tion of  art  demands  this  kind  of  expanded  consciousness, 
and  the  appreciation  of  art  is  to  a  great  extent  a  compre- 
hension of  this  faculty. 

In  the  foregoing  considerations  of  the  nature  of  art,  it  is 
not  intended  to  place  before  one  who  is  learning  to  write  an 
ideal  that  can  never  be  practically  comprehended  without 
the  gift  of  genius,  but  rather  to  help  him  realize,  as  much 
as  possible  to  begin  with,  and  more  and  more  as  maturity 
sets  in,  the  unity  of  mental  processes  in  any  effective  and 
practical  writing.  For  it  is  very  necessary  to  understand 
this  general  principle,  whether  apropos  of  a  business  letter 
or  of  a  sonata.  Otherwise  we  shall  hardly  make  out  from 
day  to  day  what  the  hfelong  process  of  liberal  education 

•  Warner  Fite,  Individtudism,  p.  94. 


8  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

is  for.  Otherwise  we  may  constantly  fail  to  appreciate 
greatness  in  our  fellow  men,  and  by  our  own  fogginess  be- 
dim, if  ever  so  little,  the  creative  ardor  of  our  generation. 
At  the  end  of  this  volume  is  an  essay,  an  address  to  a  gradu- 
ating college  class,  on  "The  Unity  of  Human  Nature." 
Corresponding  to  the  influence  of  one  man's  mind  on  his 
neighbor's  which  makes  for  social  unity,  there  is  in  every 
man's  mind  a  natural  force  for  uniting  his  own  mental 
processes  in  what  may  be  called  their  artistic  unity.  To- 
ward this  as  an  end,  learning  to  write  is  the  fundamental 
and  the  supreme  training,  not  because  we  expect  to  be- 
come creative  artists,  but  because  writing  is  perhaps  the 
only  art  in  which  we  shall  practise  enough  to  cultivate  a 
sense  of  the  universal  principles. 

II.    Originality  and  Thoroughness 

Every  man  who  intends  to  be  a  thinker — and  who  escapes 
being  a  thinker  in  these  latter  days  ? — will  understand  much 
that  is  fundamental  in  the  problem  of  literary  art;  for  the 
textures  of  great  writings,  though  they  are  as  various  as 
the  range  of  personalities,  have  something  in  common  in 
their  warp  and  woof,  and  this  every  man  understands  some- 
what, since  he  himself  cultivates  so  far  as  he  can  a  share  of 
originality,  and  since  every  bit  of  thoughtful,  practical 
writing  he  attempts  contains  principles  that  relate  it  to 
the  efforts  of  genius.  The  practical  man  uses  these  words, 
genius,  originality,  art,  with  increasing  respect  and  famil- 
iarity as  his  knowledge  of  his  own  processes  of  thought 
expands.  Indeed,  every  one,  however  humble  his  own  gifts, 
has  an  ideal  duty,  the  duty  of  fitting  himself  to  appreciate 
art,  genius,  originality,  wherever  he  meets  it. 

We  often  deem  it  the  part  of  modesty  to  disclaim  this 


LEARNING  TO  WRITE  9 

duty;  but  it  is  really  not  modesty  that  prompts  us  here  so 
much  as  laziness  or  self-satisfaction.  The  man  who  says, 
*'I  know  nothing  about  art,"  seldom  feels  humbleness  or 
even  shame  in  the  acknowledgment,  as  he  usually  shows 
by  adding  with  infinite  assurance,  ''but  I  know  what  I 
like."  Now,  it  is  knowing  about  art  that  makes  a  man 
humble.  It  is  some  familiarity  with  genius  and  some 
realization  of  how  genius  thinks  that  makes  a  man  reverent 
and  robs  him  of  his  complacency.  It  is  by  a  keen  ap- 
preciation of  originality  that  every  man  shares  in  the 
progress  of  the  world. 

From  this  point  of  view  the  effort  of  learning  to  write 
has  a  great  importance,  whether  we  succeed  very  well  or 
not.  For  even  the  kind  of  writing  which,  as  college  students, 
we  already  seem  to  do  with  a  certain  finaHty,  and  the  kind 
of  writing  that  any  man,  though  he  have  no  intention  of 
being  a  deep  thinker,  must  yet  do  with  skill  and  force  or 
fail  in  his  profession,  even  such  rather  small  achievements 
are  bound  to  give  us  some  knowledge  of  the  greater  art 
which  we  would  not  otherwise  have.  In  college  it  is  not 
the  fact  that  composition  is  the  substratum  and  the  funda- 
mental technique  of  all  intellectual  work  that  gives  it  its 
final  importance  there,  but  the  fact  that  the  effort  of  learn- 
ing to  write  may  lead  us  most  directly  and  personally  into 
the  presence  of  great  minds  and  make  us  compare  our- 
selves with  greatness.  Education,  whatever  skill  in  method 
it  may  teach  us,  is  not  liberal  education  unless  it  does  that. 
From  this  point  of  view — for  the  purpose,  that  is,  of  ex- 
panding intellect,  of  cultivating  originality  or  what  I  shall 
presently  define  as  thoroughness — it  is  important  for  one 
who  is  learning  to  write  at  college  to  see,  more  vividly  than 
he  usually  does  see,  into  what  presences  and  toward  what 
kind  of  enjoyments  and  appreciations  the  traditional  col- 


lo  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

lege  exercises  and  his  own  trusting  efforts  are  leading.  It 
is  not  good  for  him  to  be  satisfied  with  the  old,  lazy  sa3dng 
that  **it  all  trains  the  mind."  Even  the  freshman  in  his 
green  cap,  as  one  supposed  to  know  his  place  and  take  life 
as  it  comes,  should  wish  to  be  more  truly  conscious  of  his 
work  than  that  sort  of  talk  implies.  I  mean  that  he  should 
be  more  keenly  alive  to  the  fact  that  even  the  report  he 
writes  on  an  issue  in  history  enables  him  to  see,  if  he  but 
look,  the  enlargement  of  mind  in  the  great  historian  who 
has  endeavored  to  encompass  and  compress  a  hundred 
details  of  the  issue;  or  that  the  plan  which  his  professor 
makes  him  draw  of  the  Roman  Forum,  brings  him  into 
relation  with  the  vastness  of  an  empire;  that  his  mechanical 
and  imitative  skill  in  handling  the  algebra  of  calculus  can 
grow  directly  into  the  imagination  of  the  engineer  he  may 
some  day  be  when  calculus  is  the  bridge  over  a  river  or 
the  range  of  a  fortress  beyond  a  hilltop;  that  the  stanza 
he  may  have  composed  as  a  mere  exercise  gives  him  a  new 
inkling  of  what  kind  of  energy  brought  Spenser's  poem  to 
its  completion;  that  the  story  he  has  invented  about  storm 
and  shipwreck,  if  he  has  at  all  realized  the  elements  he  is 
dealing  with,  puts  him  more  keenly  in  touch  with  humanity 
and  nature;  and  that  all  of  these  matters  lead  straight  out 
into  the  complex  world  which  is  shortly  to  require  of  him 
whatever  expansion  of  mind  and  power  of  analysis  he  is 
capable  of. 

To  the  man  interested  in  writing,  such  relationships  are 
the  chief  source  of  inspiration.  They  both  idealize  his  tasks 
and  make  them  more  obviously  practical.  For  one  cannot, 
with  a  sweep  of  the  arm  and  a  fine  phrase  about  culture, 
proceed  very  far  or  very  sincerely  with  the  studies  of  a 
modem  university.  The  freshman  in  his  green  cap  under- 
stands more  than  that  of  the  matter,  more  than  the  vague 


LEARNING  TO  WRITE  ii 

principle  that  every  little  court  in  the  hall  of  knowledge 
has  its  further  door.  He  wishes  already  to  see  himself 
approaching,  if  not  actually  in  the  presence  of,  greatness. 
From  the  start  he  must  compare  his  mind  and  his  acts 
with  those  of  greatness  and  have  some  basis  for  the  com- 
parison. Only  thus,  if  he  is  to  be  a  thinker  and  a  writer, 
can  he  best  cultivate  his  originality — through  seeing  the 
further  possibilities,  the  wide  importance,  of  what  he  is 
doing.  And  only  thus  is  he  apt  to  realize  the  necessity  for 
thoroughness. 

Originality  in  thought  about  any  subject  nearly  always 
means  a  comprehensive  thoroughness.  Or,  if  you  put  it  the 
other  way  round,  a  comprehensive  thoroughness  leads  to 
originality. 

Let  me  take,  first,  an  illustration  that  applies  directly  to 
such  practical  writing  as  every  undergraduate  is  asked  to 
do.  You  have  read,  let  us  say,  about  the  execution  of 
Mary  Queen  of  Scots,  and  you  are  to  write  a  report  on  the 
significance  of  that  historical  fact.  Now  the  drift  of  the 
report,  if  it  is  only  a  mechanical  effort,  may  be  something 
as  follows:  "Mary  was  very  beautiful  and  also  rather  in- 
discreet. When  she  was  driven  from  Scotland  she  fled  to 
England.  She  was  a  Catholic,  which  stirred  up  trouble. 
Philip,  France,  and  the  Pope  had  a  good  deal  to  do  with  this. 
Elizabeth  may  have  had  nothing  against  Mary  personally, 
but  she  yielded  to  her  counsellors  and  permitted  Mary's 
execution.  This  brought  on  the  vengeance  of  Philip,  France, 
and  the  Pope.  The  result  was  the  Armada."  This  report 
may  be  two  pages  long,  or  twenty,  and  anybody  might 
have  written  it.  What  is  the  matter  with  it?  How  can 
one  be  original  on  such  a  hackneyed  topic? 

In  the  first  place,  I  think  you  have  probably  read,  in 
preparation,  one  of  those  books  nearest  to  your  elbow, 


12  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

which  is  itself  simply  a  report,  concise  or  flimsy,  as  the  case 
may  be,  but  which,  in  any  event,  carefully  avoids  doing 
anything  for  the  subject  that  would  surely  make  you  think 
about  it.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  you  should  read  a  great 
account,  such  as  Froude  has  written — a  great  account, 
because  it  is  vivid,  complex,  simple,  comprehensive,  all 
at  once — you  will  take  the  first  step  toward  writing  an 
"original"  report  on  the  subject.  For  Froude  is  thor- 
ough, in  spite  of  a  few  inaccuracies,  and  is  sure  to  give  you, 
even  in  a  rather  hurried  reading,  some  notion  of  the  infinite 
ramifications  of  this  one  fact,  the  execution  of  Mary  Stuart. 
It  will  then  perhaps  occur  to  you  rather  sharply  how  in- 
teresting is  the  old  truth  that  everything  that  happens 
on  earth  is  connected  with  everything  else  that  happens 
there,  and  that  this  one  fact  is  a  wonderful  illustration  of  it. 
In  order  to  see  the  matter  originally,  this  is  a  fundamental 
idea  to  keep  in  mind.  After  reading  such  an  account  as 
Froude's,  ask  yourself  what  were  the  causes  of  Mary's 
execution,  and  you  will  be  led  at  once  into  most  complex 
and  seemingly  endless  chains  of  influence.  These  chains 
of  events  are,  however,  just  because  of  their  complexity, 
reasonable  and  comprehensible;  they  always  lead  you  back 
to  central  connections.  Now  you  probably  observe  that 
certain  links  in  each  chain  of  cause  and  effect  are  forged 
more  definitely  than  the  rest,  or  that  they  seem  to  join 
together  several  chains.  What  sort  of  force  is  it  that  forges 
most  of  these  links?  That  is  obviously  the  important 
matter.  If  you  can  determine  that,  you  will  have  a  point 
of  view  about  the  whole  subject.  So  you  begin  to  compare 
the  links  for  similarities:  Mary's  early  relations  with  the 
French  court;  her  marriage  with  Darnley;  Rizzio;  her 
treachery;  Bothwell;  her  conflict  with  John  Knox;  her 
conflict  with  her  brother;    Elizabeth's  jealousy;    Eliza- 


LEARNING  TO  WRITE  13 

beth's  failure  to  marry  the  Duke  of  Alen^on;  the  excom- 
munication of  Elizabeth;  the  Northern  Rising;  the  mas- 
sacre of  St.  Bartholomew;  popular  enthusiasm  for  Francis 
Drake;  the  Babington  plot.  You  examine  them  all,  and 
as  you  find  more  and  more  traces  of  the  same  forces  at 
work,  you  begin  to  see  how  you  will  answer  any  phase  of 
the  question.  A  force  that  forges  a  great  many  of  these 
links  in  the  chain  of  circumstance  that  surrounds  Mary 
appears  to  be  her  own  wayward,  rather  "indiscreet"  dis- 
position. Another  force  forges  links  out  of  the  conflict 
between  Rome  and  John  Knox,  and  joins  them  to  those 
formed  in  the  conflict  between  Rome  and  Elizabeth.  Again 
appears  the  mischievous  force  of  EHzabeth's  own  froward- 
ness.  Mary's  fate  wears  many  chains,  and,  as  you  perceive 
in  reading  Froude,  there  is  something  ominous  in  the  way 
these  chains  are  slowly  welded  together.  Any  aspect  of 
her  fate  inevitably  suggests  the  others. 

When  you  have  reached  this  comprehensive  point  of 
view,  you  may  safely  take  up  any  phase  of  the  subject 
without  a  constant  tendency  to  produce  a  mere  imitation 
of  the  facts.  It  is  in  seeing  a  thing  thoroughly,  or  from  many 
angles,  that  you  choose  a  point  of  view  of  your  own  and 
begin  to  see  originally.  You  decide,  let  us  say,  to  show  how 
far  John  Knox  and  the  growth  of  Calvinism  may  be  said 
to  have  brought  about  Mary's  tragic  end.  This  will  per- 
haps involve,  first,  a  description  of  the  contrast  between 
Mary's  character,  which  was  formed  in  the  French  court 
before  she  came  to  Scotland,  and  the  austerity  of  Scotch 
opinion.  Then  might  follow  a  discussion  of  John  Knox 
as  the  originator  and  representative  of  this  opinion,  his 
conception  of  his  duty,  and  his  attitude  toward  Romanism. 
Next,  the  shock  felt  by  the  nation  at  Mary's  unscrupulous 
behavior,  and  the  effects  of  this  in  driving  her  into  England 


14  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

and  in  dissuading  Elizabeth  from  any  attempt  to  restore 
her  to  the  throne  and  from  any  other  step  that  would  offend 
the  Scotch  in  the  crisis  which  was  threatening  abroad. 

From  this  special  point  of  view,  you  thus  look  at  nearly 
all  the  phases  of  the  subject.  You  introduce  nothing  not 
well  known;  but  your  arrangement  of  details  expresses 
your  own  opinion,  and  you  are  seeing  the  thing  for  yourself 
— not  just  through  somebody  else's  eyes.  Seeing  a  thing 
thus  thoroughly  implies  an  expansion  of  mind,  without 
which  one  hardly  writes  well  on  any  subject.  For  it  is 
expansion  that  clear  thinking  demands  as  much  as  con- 
centration. This  is  the  same  principle  that  we  noted  in 
regard  to  the  musician  and  his  technique.  There,  Doctor 
Fite  pointed  out  that  ''art  aims  above  all  things  to  be  free," 
and  that  freedom  comes  from  a  mastery  of  detail.  In 
regard  to  writing  he  puts  the  case  as  follows:  "Every  one 
who  attempts  to  put  his  thoughts  into  writing  has  his  days 
when  words  are  mere  words  and  nothing  more.  We  speak 
at  such  times  of  the  difficulty  of  concentration.  But  it  is 
equally  a  difficulty  of  expansion.  You  cannot  get  your 
thoughts  together  because  you  cannot  cover  your  j5eld  of 
thought.  Like  the  traveller  in  a  fog,  your  vision  is  limited 
to  the  region  just  about  you,  and  you  find  it  difficult  to 
make  out  whence  your  argument  has  come  and  whither 
you  intend  it  to  go.  And  when  you  afterwards  review  what 
you  have  written  you  find  there  a  string  of  formal  literary 
phrases  expressing  not  so  much  what  you  meant  as  what 
was  the  correct  thing  to  say.  Contrast  this  with  the  rarer 
occasions  when  you  are  truly  and  certainly  yourself.  Then, 
in  a  mental  atmosphere  of  serene  clearness,  the  whole  field 
of  your  argument  lies  extended  before  you  in  perfect  dis- 
tinctness of  outline.  And  then,  just  because  of  your  ex- 
panded field  of  vision,  you  know  at  each  moment  just  where 


LEARNING  TO  WRITE  15 

you  are,  just  what  you  mean;  and  every  phrase  that  you 
utter,  instead  of  being  merely  the  proper  thing  to  say,  is 
now  remoulded,  re-born,  so  to  speak,  out  of  the  depths  of 
your  private  self,  and,  like  your  hand  or  your  face,  so  in- 
dividuated that  it  could  belong  to  no  one  else."^ 

Indeed,  you  date  your  understanding  of  any  problem 
from  the  moment  when  you  stop  leaning  on  somebody  else's 
explanation  of  it.  Even  in  so  literal  a  matter  as  geometry, 
you  can  scarcely  be  said  to  understand  it  till  you  have 
acquired  a  certain  independence  of  thought,  and,  having 
mastered  the  principal  theorems,  can  proceed  to  solve 
"originals."  Your  originality  here  both  depends  on  your 
comprehension  of  those  previous  explanations,  and  is  set 
free  by  that  comprehension.  Thoroughness  is  the  bottom 
of  originality.  Being  original  consists  not  so  much  in  being 
different  from  other  people  as  in  going  beyond  them;  it 
consists  not  so  much  in  alighting  on  some  unthought-of 
point  as  in  working  up  to  it.  To  originality  the  past  is 
indispensable.  A  mastery  of  tradition  is  its  source  and 
spring.  Walt  Whitman  depends  distantly  on  Shakespeare 
and  Wordsworth;  Marconi  immediately  on  Edison  and 
Tesla.  The  thought  of  man  progresses,  slowly  or  by  leaps 
and  bounds;  but  it  does  not  create  itself. 

Such  definitions,  while  viewing  originality  from  its  hope- 
ful side,  do  not,  however,  put  it  within  the  reach  of  every 
persistent  and  serious-minded  person.  Thoroughness  is 
not  just  laboriousness,  and  comprehensive  thoroughness 
presupposes  a  superior  type  of  energy.  I  once  heard  a 
newspaper  reporter  explaining  the  difference  between  re- 
porting and  writing.  "Suppose  you  are  told,"  said  he,  "to 
furnish  a  column  about  the  opening  of  the  new  Boston  sub- 
way. If  you  are  just  a  reporter,  you  will  take  a  lot  of  pains 
*  Warner  Fite,  Individualism,  p.  96. 


i6  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

to  find  out  how  long  the  subway  is,  how  long  it  has  taken 
to  build  it,  how  it  is  built,  how  much  it  has  cost,  how  much 
traffic  it  is  likely  to  divert,  and  all  the  other  obvious  how's 
regarding  it.  You  will  arrange  all  your  information  syste- 
matically, and  as  interestingly  as  you  can  without  spoiling 
the  system.  Those  who  read  your  article  will  not  have, 
at  first,  a  question  to  ask.  They  will  simply  say:  'Well, 
the  new  subway  is  a  mile  long;  it  has  cost  the  city  a  pretty 
penny;  but  it  is  finished.'  If  you  are  a  writer,  you  will 
at  once  recognize  that  you  have  here  an  inspiring  and 
difl&cult  task,  not  a  mechanical  task.  In  the  same  space 
of  a  colunm,  you  have,  somehow  or  other,  to  answer  all 
the  obvious  questions  in  the  case,  and,  in  addition,  to  make 
the  reader  see  more  personally  what  the  subway  is  like  and 
what  the  problem  of  building  it  has  meant,  its  significance 
to  himself  and  to  the  city,  how  it  is  going  to  affect  a  dozen 
civic  problems,  how  it  is  going  to  change  the  area,  let  us 
say,  of  some  distant  residence  section,  and  the  price  of 
land  ten  miles  out  of  town.  You  have,  that  is,  to  use  your 
trained  imagination  and  answer  a  great  many  hypothetical 
and  ultimate  questions,  and  think  all  the  time  with  more 
comprehensive  thoroughness  than  the  reporter.  When  the 
reporter  got  through  with  his  impersonal  and  mechanical  ac- 
count, the  subway  was  still,  so  to  speak,  anybody's  subway; 
it  was  described  as  anybody  might  have  described  it.  When 
the  writer  gets  through  with  his  interpretative  account,  the 
subway  has  become  an  expression  of  the  writer's  opinion, 
and  it  is,  in  certain  aspects,  the  writer's  subway."  Now 
this  is  not  saying  that  to  be  a  writer  you  must  be  a  genius; 
it  merely  expresses,  to  a  newspaper  man,  the  basic  difference 
between  reporting  and  writing.  It  perhaps  expresses  also 
what  is  essential  in  serious  originality. 
It  is  perfectly  clear  to  us,  if  we  have  studied  the  writings 


LEARNING  TO  WRITE  17 

of  men  of  originality,  that  practically  every  subject  of 
thought  has  two  aspects :  its  obvious  aspect,  or  as  it  might 
appear  to  anybody,  and  its  aspect  as  it  appears  to  some 
thinking  individual.  Our  simplest  phrases  illustrate  this. 
The  dark  night,  says  anybody.  The  huge  and  thoughtftd 
night,  says  some  individual.  The  bright  moon,  says  any- 
body. The  immense  and  silent  moon,  says  some  individual, 
who,  in  these  cases,  was  a  poet.  You  have,  probably,  like 
anybody  else,  made  a  voyage  in  a  great  steamship.  The 
compact  complexity  of  the  vessel  interested  you,  as  it 
naturally  would  interest  anybody.  But  after  you  have 
read  Kipling's  story  of  The  Ship  that  Found  Herself,  is  there 
not  a  far  more  vivid  aspect  of  the  matter  and  far  more 
meaning?  Do  you  now  see  the  ship  as  anybody  might  see 
it,  or  quite  differently?  And  the  truth  is  that  after  the 
individual  has  spoken  there  is  a  third  aspect  of  every 
subject — the  unforgettable  aspect  that  everybody  knows 
who  has  looked  through  the  individual's  eyes.  For  grad- 
ually the  world  is  made  over  by  art  and  becomes  a  new 
original  possession  for  those  who  have  eyes  to  see  with  the 
artists.^ 

This  is  what  the  writers  and  the  musicians  and  the 
painters  are  doing  for  us,  and  what  we  are  all  striving  to 
do  somewhat  for  ourselves.  Though  we  may  disclaim  any 
attempt  to  be  original,  the  attempt  is  spontaneous  whenever 
we  try  to  make  any  subject  clear  to  another  person.  "How 
shall  I  know  Jones  in  the  crowd  at  the  railway  station?" 
you  are  asked;  and  your  reply  is  an  attempt  on  your  part 
to  be  an  artist,  "The  way  to  learn  to  write,"  said  Flaubert 
to  his  pupil  De  Maupassant,  "is  to  stand  on  a  street  corner 
watching  the  cab-horses  file  past;  pick  out  one  cab-horse, 
and  describe  him  in  a  single  phrase  so  that  he  will  be  dif- 

'  See  Browning's  Fra  Lippo  Lippi,  lines  300-306. 


i8  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

ferent  from  all  the  other  cab-horses  in  Paris."  Think  of 
the  unrelaxing  scrutiny,  the  complete  thoroughness,  which 
this  stupendous  advice,  if  it  could  be  carried  out,  would 
mean.  Yet  that,  on  a  reasonable  scale,  is  the  way  to  learn 
to  write,  as  can  be  illustrated  from  almost  any  page  of 
good  fiction.  In  De  Maupassant's  story  of  The  String  how 
carefully  he  watches  the  old  peasant's  every  gesture;  in 
The  Coward  how  intently  he  follows  the  successive  moods 
of  fear. 

In  art  nothing  that  is  superficial  is  successful;  being 
artistically  true  depends  to  a  high  degree  on  thoroughness. 
If  you  will  try  to  write  up  one  of  your  own  vivid  experiences 
with  the  sole  idea  of  making  the  reader  see  and  feel  as  you 
did,  you  will  discover  at  once  that  a  few  truthful  statements 
do  not  necessarily  convey  the  impression  you  intend. 
A  truthful  statement  is  one  thing;  an  impression  like  yours 
is  another.  It  is  a  truthful  statement  to  say:  "It  was  a 
hot  day,  and  a  great  many  people  were  assembled  at  the 
county  fair."  But  you  hardly  expect  the  reader,  on  the 
strength  of  that,  to  find  himself  with  you  at  the  fair-grounds. 
To  be  artistically  true  requires  much  sharp  observation, 
much  experience,  much  practise. 

Let  us  take  this  instance  of  a  county  fair.  Let  us  sup- 
pose that  the  centre  of  interest  is  a  running  race,  and  that 
we  wish  to  give  the  reader  some  notion  of  how  it  appeared 
in  the  midst  of  the  great  crowd.  Since  the  whole  thing  is 
just  the  sort  of  occasion  that  we  never  feel  more  keenly 
than  in  youth,  why  should  we  not  be  able  to  give  a  true 
and  vivid  accoimt  of  it?  Yet  something  like  the  following 
is  what  we  are  usually  capable  of: 

It  was  a  piping  hot  August  afternoon,  and  a  great  many  people  had 
assembled  at  the  fair-grounds.  There  were  farmers  from  all  over  the 
county,  with  their  wives  and  children,  dressed  out  in  every  imag- 


LEARNING  TO  WRITE  19 

inable  fashion,  all  wandering  about  at  random,  looking  at  the 
various  shows  or  drinking  red  lemonade  in  a  shed  out  of  the  sun. 
But  the  centre  of  interest  was  the  running  track  where  the  great 
race  "for  the  championship  of  the  world"  was  shortly  to  be  held. 

And  so  we  might  go  on  for  several  pages,  gathering  mere 
general  impressions,  not  untruthful,  but  perfectly  flat, 
opening  our  eyes  to  stare,  but  not  to  see  sharply.  In  con- 
trast, here  is  the  same  scene  visualized: 

There  was,  in  the  first  place,  a  piping  hot  August  afternoon,  the 
kind  that  they  have  out  in  the  corn  belt,  when  not  a  drop  of  rain 
has  fallen  for  a  couple  of  months  and  the  leaves  are  drying  up  on 
the  trees  and  the  grass  is  yellow  and  crackly  under  foot,  and  the 
dust  follows  after  the  farmers'  wagons  like  smoke.  Then,  inside 
a  high  board  fence,  was  the  fair-ground,  with  big  wooden  halls  here 
and  there,  oak-trees  with  locusts  singing  away  in  the  branches,  and 
packed  full  of  people  and  prize  cattle  and  pumpkins  and  lunch-boxes 
and  chewing  candy  and  noise.  There  were  farmers  in  their  store- 
clothes  just  in  from  thrashing  and  farmers'  girls  in  white  dresses 
with  pink  and  baby-blue  ribbons,  and  in  between,  children  with 
sticky  popcorn  and  red  balloons  and  squawkers.  There  was  a 
"natural  amphitheatre"  with  benches  running  along  the  side  hill, 
where  the  hushed  crowd  gaped  at  the  spellbinder  waving  his  arms 
beside  the  ice-water  pitcher.  There  were  prize-pig  pens  and  sheep 
pens,  the  art  hall  with  its  pictures  of  peaches  tumbling  out  of 
baskets  and  watermelons  just  opened  with  the  knife  lying  beside 
them,  and  the  tents  where  Diavolo  ate  grass  and  blew  fire  out  of 
his  mouth  and  the  beautiful  young  lady  stood  out  on  a  platform 
by  the  ticket-box,  in  faded  pink  tights,  with  a  big  wet  snake  wound 
around  her  throat  and  her  spangles  blinking  in  the  sunshine.  There 
were  sample  windmills  and  cane-ringing  games,  and  wherever  there 
was  room  a  man  shaking  popcorn  or  pulling  candy  over  a  hook, 
or  a  damp  little  shed  smelling  of  vanilla,  where  people  were  eating 
ice  cream  and  drinking  red  lemonade.  You  get  all  that  and  lots 
more  going  at  once,  with  the  barkers  yelling  and  the  sledge-ham- 
mers thumping  on  the  strength-testing  machines  and  the  merry- 
go-round  organs  squealing  away,  with  the  sun  blazing  at  ninety- 
four  in  the  shade  and  everywhere  the  smell  of  hot  people  and  clothes 
and  stale  perfume,  of  lemonade  and  popcorn  and  peanuts  and  dust 
and  trampled  grass — you  take  all  that,  draw  a  third-of-a-mile  circle 
through  the  thick  of  it,  push  the  crowd  back  a  bit,  and  you  have 


20  COLLEGE  AND   THE  FUTURE 

the  Vandalia  track  that  day  as  the  engine  bell  in  the  judges'  stand 
tolled  out  the  warning  signal  and  the  old  marshal  on  his  white 
circus  horse  rode  down  the  track  sidewise,  bellowing  out  the  "mile 
foot-race  fer  the  champeenship  of  the  world!"* 

Take  a  good  look  at  this  little  picture.  Is  there  an  ele- 
ment in  it  that  you  could  not  have  thought  of  by  yourself  ? 
You  do  not  believe  that  your  own  impressions  were  less 
vivid,  for  you  felt  the  heat,  the  crowd,  the  dust,  in  just  that 
way.  From  your  point  of  view,  that  is  what  makes  the 
whole  so  true.  It  corresponds  perfectly  to  your  experience. 
You  did  not  phrase  your  impressions  at  the  time,  but  is 
not  the  language  simple  enough — ^just  the  phrases,  taken 
one  by  one,  you  might  perfectly  well  have  used  ?  What  is 
it,  then,  which  is,  perhaps,  beyond  your  reach?  It  is  to 
give  a  clear,  multicolored  impression  of  the  whole  appear- 
ance, taking  into  account  all  the  facts  you  remember,  the 
air,  the  crowd,  the  noise,  the  dust,  the  excitement,  the  look 
and  sensation  of  it  all,  not  vaguely,  but  specifically,  by 
some  sort  of  orderly  selection  of  parts,  by  some  sort  of 
focussing  process  that  suggests  whatever  it  blots  out,  so 
that  the  whole,  the  reality,  is  always  retained.  This  kind 
of  record,  as  you  say,  requires  more  originaHty  than  you 
possess.  But  now  please  notice  that  it  presents  much  the 
same  problem  as  describing  the  significance  of  Queen  Mary's 
death,  after  a  reading  of  Froude's  complexly  detailed  narra- 
tive. Doubtless  it  is  only  a  man  with  a  good  deal  of  art 
who  can  accomplish  either  of  these  things  well;  but,  on 
the  whole,  it  is  as  difl5cult  to  do  one  as  the  other. 

You  may  call  this  ability  what  you  like — trained  ob- 
servation, craftsmanship,  imagination;  but  for  purposes 
of  getting  it  into  a  real  relationship  with  your  own  capabili- 
ties and  with  your  character,  it  is  well  to  call  it  thorough- 
*  Arthur  Ruhl,  "Left  Behind,"  Scribner's  Magazine,  vol.  38,  p.  300. 


LEARNING  TO  WRITE  21 

ness.  If  you  lack  thoroughness,  you  may  still  hope  to  gain 
some  of  it  and  some  of  those  qualities  that  it  either  includes 
or  creates. 

///.     The  Practical  Methods 


After  considering  even  thus  briefly  what  Uterary  art  is 
and  what  are  some  of  its  demands  on  us,  we  are  in  a  better 
position  to  take  advantage  of  any  definite,  practical  advice 
as  to  methods  of  working  at  our  literary  tasks.  But  no 
practical  advice  such  as,  for  example,  Benjamin  Franklin 
or  Robert  Louis  Stevenson  has  given  us  about  how  to  sit 
down  to  work,  or  such  counsel  in  regard  to  technicalities 
of  structure  as  the  books  of  rhetoric  are  full  of,  is  so  im- 
portant and  so  fundamental  as  a  vivid  conception  of  the 
kind  of  energy  which  the  ideals  of  literary  art  represent. 

By  practical  methods  I  mean  here  the  combination  of 
personal  habits  of  work  with  external  principles  of  literary 
structure.  Good  habits  of  work  come  from  the  effort  to 
make  them  correspond  to  principles  of  structure.  Unity 
is  a  principle  of  structure;  concentration  is  a  habit  of  work. 
Ease  is  a  principle  of  structure;  listening  to  the  tone  of 
what  one  says  and  imitating  or  continuing  its  finest  strains 
is  a  habit  of  work.  But  concentration  and  listening  to 
tone  are  effected  by  different  people  in  different  ways,  and 
the  habits  resulting  are  individual.  Therefore  practical 
methods  of  composition  are  often  highly  idiosyncratic. 
Those  which  I  shall  ultimately  emphasize  have,  however, 
a  fairly  wide  utility. 

Authors  themselves,  both  the  great  and  the  less,  have 
furnished  us  with  an  almost  infinite  variety  of  informa- 
tion as  to  how  they  "do  it,"  ranging  from  the  sort  of  pen 


22  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

they  use  to  the  diet  and  even  the  brand  of  tobacco  which 
most  conduce  to  inspiration.  I  recall  reading  somewhere 
that  the  Ubretto  of  Don  Giovanni  was  written  at  midnight 
in  a  haze  of  latakia,  and  that  the  novels  of  Marion  Craw- 
ford were  clearly  indited  on  a  certain  definite  size  of  paper 
with  a  Falcon  pen.  Doubtless  there  is  something  to  be 
learned  from  a  study  of  writers'  proclivities :  for  when  you 
discover  that  every  hour  of  the  day  and  night  has  been 
named  by  some  successful  author  as  the  one  and  only 
season  for  labor;  and  that  certain  mysterious  persons,  like 
Lord  Byron,  wrote  only  at  the  remaining  unknown  seasons; 
also  that  every  conceivable  speed  is  earnestly  to  be  striven 
for,  from  Walter  Pater's  two  pages  a  day  to  Anthony 
TroUope's  regular  two  hundred  and  fifty  words  every  fifteen 
minutes  by  the  clock,  or  Colonel  Ligraham's  forty  thou- 
sand words  in  twenty-four  hours,  for  some  novel  of  the  im- 
mortal Buffalo  Bill  Series;  you  wisely  conclude  that  you 
should  study  your  own  case  in  these  matters,  and  discover 
what  seasons  are  for  you  the  most  fluent  or  the  most  in- 
tense, and  how  much  work  you  can,  as  a  rule,  do  effectively 
at  a  stretch.  It  is  also  interesting  to  know  that  such  a 
veteran  as  Doctor  Johnson,  found  it  easier  to  write  while 
he  was  stroking  a  cat;  that  Herbert  Spencer,  who  suffered 
from  a  nervous  affection  and  wrote  in  brief  half-hour  in- 
tervals, wore  a  white  canton-flannel  suit  to  maintain  an 
equilibrium  of  heat  throughout  his  body,  and  thick  ear- 
tabs  to  keep  out  noise;  that  Zola  worked  in  the  day- 
time, with  blinds  closed  and  gas  lighted;  and  that  vast 
numbers  of  authors  have  written  chiefly  before  breakfast — 
as  their  writings  most  obviously  show.  Somebody  has 
defined  literature  as  the  record  of  the  best  moments  of  the 
best  minds.  A  psychologist  (with  a  sense  of  humor), 
investigating  this  matter  of  authors'  habits,  could  determine 


LEARNING  TO  WRITE  23 

for  us  what  are  the  best  moments  and  imder  what  circum- 
stances they  are  most  likely  to  occur.  But  until  that  is 
done  we  shall  have  to  blunder  on  in  our  own  ways. 

There  are,  nevertheless,  a  number  of  small  matters  of 
suflSciently  general  application  to  be  mentioned  here.  It 
is  most  important  to  learn  to  write  a  fastidiously  clear 
script  in  lines  far  enough  apart  to  allow  an  inserted  line  in 
revision,  to  get  used  to  a  standard  size  page,  regular  margins, 
and,  in  general,  to  perfect  early  such  mechanical  aspects 
of  the  task  as  every  man  finds  serviceable.  It  is  an  ex- 
cellent practise,  in  most  cases,  to  revise  each  paragraph 
as  it  is  finished,  and  the  whole  composition  afterward,  and 
to  make  a  great  moral  effort  to  complete  the  first  draft  in 
these  two  natural  processes  of  revision — after  which  there 
should  be  made  a  final  draft,  allowing  a  certain  time,  if 
possible,  to  intervene.* 

A  very  reasonable  proclivity  of  a  well-known  American 
novelist  is  to  write  the  first  draft  of  his  stories  in  college 
blue  books,  using  the  opposite  blank  page  for  his  revisions 
and  insertions.  I  know  of  no  purely  mechanical  suggestion 
so  apt  to  increase  order  and  unity,  and  to  save  time,  as 
this.  Another  writer  has  told  me  that  he  finds  it  fatal  to 
the  ultimately  desired  sequence  of  his  work  to  write  on 
large  sheets  of  paper.  He  writes  passages  on  half-sheets, 
and  from  time  to  time  rearranges  them  and  pastes  them 
together.  In  this  way  he  can  see  more  exactly  the  real 
sequences  and  connections,  and  he  is  not  so  apt  to  invent 
a  transition  or  a  casual  relationship  between  two  thoughts 
which  have  occurred  to  him  in  succession,  but  which  have 
no  other  natural  connection.    He  often  finds,  that  is,  that 

*  The  studetat  who  finishes  an  essay  or  report  at  midnight  and  turns  it  in 
to  his  instructor  the  next  morning  is  usually  forcing  the  instructor  to  do 
fifty  per  cent  of  the  revising  which  the  student,  a  day  later,  could  have  done 
equally  well  for  himself. 


24  COLLEGE  AND   THE  FUTURE 

the  Iticidus  ordo  of  his  production  is  not  the  chronological 
order  of  his  thoughts,  however  logical  that  order  may  have 
seemed  at  the  time. 

Now  the  lucid  order,  the  right  arrangement  of  parts, 
is  obviously  the  chief  end  of  structure,  and  these  personal, 
practical  devices  or  habits  are  developed  by  the  demands 
of  that  end. 

The  fundamental  methods  are  organizing  detail  and  guid- 
ing the  reader,  and  keeping  or  modulating  the  tone.  They  are 
all  methods  which  serve  the  end  of  clearness,  though  that 
word,  as  we  shall  see,  can  be  variously  interpreted.  But 
among  all  methods  that  might  be  suggested,  if  the  student 
who  is  learning  to  write  understands  thoroughly  one  or  two, 
he  has,  so  to  speak,  introduced  a  yeast  into  his  ideas  and 
purposes  which  will  leaven  the  whole.  Let  us  consider 
first  an  illustrative  method  of  organizing  detail. 

n 

Let  us  suppose  that  in  thinking  over  the  fate  of  Mary 
Queen  of  Scots,  to  take  a  subject  already  referred  to  and 
somewhat  familiar,  you  have  been  struck  with  the  idea 
that  Mary's  world  of  royalty  and  statecraft  was  so  small 
and  so  closely  organized  that  everything  any  one  did  in  it 
seemed  to  afifect  sooner  or  later  everybody  else  who  be- 
longed to  it.  In  this  closely  organized  world  everything 
counted  in  a  peculiar  way.  Mary  herself  was  too  important 
to  take  a  single  step  which,  if  it  happened  to  be  a  foolish 
one,  did  not  rapidly  bring  her  into  trouble.  In  the  larger, 
more  loosely  organized  world  of  commonalty,  our  mistakes 
are  oftener  to  be  mended,  because  our  influence  does  not 
radiate  so  rapidly  or  so  widely.  But  in  Mary's  world,  the 
King  of  Spain  could  have  no  opinion  that  did  not  ultimately 


LEARNING  TO  WRITE    '  25 

affect  her  ambitions,  and  Drake  could  not  gain  a  victory 
in  South  America  that  did  not  make  her  position  in  her 
English  prison  a  little  less  secure. 

Supposing  that  such  considerations  had  decided  you  to 
write  a  theme  on  the  subject  they  suggest — The  Unity  of 
Men  and  their  Acts.  Let  us  also  suppose  that  you  have 
other  illustrations  of  what  we  mean  by  this  kind  of  unity, 
this  interdependence,  and  that  you  have  thought  out  some- 
what the  general  truth  involved — that,  if  all  the  acts  and 
opinions  of  men  ultimately  influence  each  other,  each  of 
us  has  a  tremendous  burden  of  responsibility  to  think  and 
act  wisely,  and  to  be  effective  citizens  of  our  own  part  of 
the  world.  This  may  have  struck  you  as  a  very  significant 
idea.  The  question  is  how  to  introduce  and  arrange  it  so 
that  it  will  affect  the  reader  as  poignantly,  so  that  all  it 
implies  will  dawn  on  him  brightly  and  create  a  vista  for 
his  imagination. 

Obviously  then,  the  first  step  is  to  discover  a  really  in- 
teresting point  from  which  to  begin,  for  you  must  gain  an 
advantage  over  the  possible  (the  highly  probable)  indif- 
ference of  the  reader  at  the  very  start.  You  must  say  some- 
thing to  throw  a  light  ahead,  to  rouse  his  curiosity,  his 
expectation,  in  regard  to  the  general  look  of  the  subject. 
Indeed,  to  discover  a  really  significant  point  of  departure 
is  to  settle  for  the  writer  several  difficult  problems.  Such 
a  beginning  usually  suggests  a  fairly  definite  course  and 
fixes  the  limits  of  your  subject.  If  you  have  definitely 
raised  the  reader's  expectation,  you  should  more  easily 
know  when  you  have  satisfied  it.  There  is  something  def- 
inite for  you  to  live  up  to,  and  something  definite  to  keep 
you  in  bounds.  A  good  beginning  will  do  more  psycholog- 
ically for  the  unity  and  coherence,  and  hence  for  the  end 
of  a  theme,  than  any  other  one  factor. 


26  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

You  will  very  likely  find  a  satisfactory  beginning  by 
jotting  down  on  separate  slips  of  paper  all  the  points  and 
illustrations  you  can  readily  think  of  which  you  wish  to 
embody  in  the  essay,  and  then  sorting  them  as  you  would 
a  hand  of  cards  till  they  fall  into  their  most  reasonable  and 
most  pleasing  arrangement.  From  this  arrangement,  you 
can,  if  you  wish,  write  out  a  formal  outline;  but  I  think 
it  is  usually  better  to  let  these  cards  or  slips  constitute 
yovu"  outline — at  least  until  you  are  well  on  your  course. 
They  are  easily  shifted,  and  this  kind  of  outline  can  be 
more  quickly  altered  and  revised  than  if  it  is  formally 
drawn  up.  Also  you  may  get  a  better  idea  of  what  doesn't 
belong  in  it,  and  this  is  a  matter  of  first-rate  importance. 

Suppose  that  the  topics  on  these  separate  slips  read  as 
follows : 

(i)  Statement  of  the  principle  of  the  unity  of  men  and  their  acts. 
(2)  Illustration:  the  history  of  Mary  Stuart.  (3)  The  world  is 
very  small,  especially  in  the  upper  classes  of  society,  and  therefore 
smallest  in  the  ruling  class.  (4)  Does  not  intermarriage  among 
royalty  complicate  the  relations  of  nations  in  a  way  to  make  them 
more  precarious  than  they  naturally  are?  (5)  Nations  live  peace- 
ably side  by  side;  rulers  do  not.  (6)  The  principle  of  unity  is  seen 
most  easily  in  the  small  group  of  crowned  heads,  but  it  is  a  univer- 
sal principle.  (7)  You  influence  your  neighbor,  your  neighbor  in- 
fluences some  one  else.  Is  it  not  like  throwing  a  stone  into  a  pond 
and  starting  the  ripples  ?  (8)  Ultimately  it  may  be  said  that  your 
opinion  influences  the  Czar  of  Russia.  (9)  Illustration:  You  help 
to  call  the  attention  of  Mr.  Thomas  Mott  Osborne  to  the  conditions 
of  our  prisons.  He  spends  a  week  in  Auburn  Jail.  He  writes  a  book 
about  it.  He  is  appointed  warden  of  Sing  Sing,  and  inaugurates 
certain  reforms.  Russian  travellers  visit  Sing  Sing;  Russians  read 
his  book  or  the  reports  of  journals.  Ultimately,  there  are  better 
prisons  in  Siberia.  (10)  We  can  never  do  anything  simply  for  our- 
selves; whatever  we  do  for  ourselves  is  also  for  others.  (11)  We 
have  a  grave  responsibility.  We  are  part  of  collective  opinion.  To 
be  as  intelligent  a  part  of  collective  opinion  as  we  can  is  our  greatest 
duty,  an  international  duty.  (12)  In  becoming  liberally  educated 
we  are  performing  a  widely  significant  r61e.    (13)  Liberal  collective 


LEARNING  TO  WRITE  27 

opinion  must  rule  the  world,  not  family  opinion,  not  royalty,  not 
governmental  opinion.  (14)  Application  of  these  ideas  to  the 
great  war. 

Suppose  that  this  represents  the  arrangement  of  your 
notes  for  this  essay  on  the  unity  of  men  and  their  acts. 
It  is  not  by  any  means  the  only  arrangement,  or  the  best, 
but  it  represents  a  definite  drift  of  thought.  It  will  do  to 
start  with,  and  a  brightened  beginning  will  do  much  toward 
making  its  outline  sharper.  Suppose  that  the  following 
ways  of  beginning  occur  to  you:  (i)  To  tell  how  you  were 
reading  about  the  life  and  death  of  Queen  Mary,  and  how 
you  had  concluded,  from  the  way  in  which  so  many  rather 
remotely  connected  events  all  finally  seemed  to  join  toward 
one  end,  that  there  is  a  more  generally  applicable  principle 
of  the  unity  of  human  nature  than  we  are  normally  con- 
scious of.  This  might  make  an  excellent  introduction, 
intimate  and  personal,  in  which  you  take  the  reader  by  the 
hand  and  start  him  fairly  on  his  course: 

The  other  day,  when  I  was  reading  about  the  political  and  religious 
complications  leading  to  the  execution  of  Mary  Stuart,  etc. 

It  would  be  that  sort  of  easy  beginning,  (2)  But  on  ex- 
perimenting a  few  minutes  with  this  beginning,  it  may  oc- 
cur to  you  that,  after  all,  it  will  not  prove  very  significant 
unless  you  analyze  and  illustrate  the  fate  of  Mary  Stuart 
at  length,  and  that  a  long  discourse  on  Elizabethan  history, 
all  for  the  sake  of  showing  that  what  most  of  us  believe  in 
theory  is  sometimes  concretely  true,  is  not  a  very  far- 
reaching,  not  exactly  a  running  start.  You  are  out  of 
breath  before  you  have  really  begun,  and  you  have  to  begin 
again.  So  you  decide  to  put  the  general  truth  first  and 
at  once  illustrate  briefly  by  a  reference  to  this  historic 
example: 


28  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

All  human  actions  are  interdependent.  Everything  influences, 
directly  or  indirectly,  everything  else.  This  can  be  seen  from  the 
study  of  history.    Let  us  take  a  single  instance,  etc. 

It  would  be  that  sort  of  succinct  beginning.  (3)  If,  how- 
ever, you  have  a  keen  sense  of  what  beginnings  ought  to  do 
for  subjects,  if  you  recall  your  own  pleasure  in  opening  a 
magazine  and  starting  to  read,  as  it  were  from  an  eminence, 
you  will  reaUze  as  you  proceed  that  this  second  beginning 
of  yours  is  not  very  prophetic.  It  does  not  really  raise 
expectation  so  well  as  the  other  because  it  proceeds  to  fix 
the  attention  too  quickly  on  an  exact  instance  before  the 
mind  has  had  time  to  guess  at  the  many  implications  of 
the  general  thesis.  You  reaUze  that  if  you  are  going  on  to 
speak  of  what  this  thesis  means  in  regard  to  current  affairs 
and  our  individual  social  duty;  if,  for  instance,  you  intend 
to  apply  it  for  specific  illustration  to  the  great  European 
war  and  to  show  that  we  all  share  in  the  causes  of  that  war, 
which,  from  a  universal  point  of  view,  is  due  to  a  lack  of 
educated  opinion,  to  a  lack  of  power  in  any  great  number 
of  men  to  think  widely  on  international  subjects,  and  hence 
that  it  may  be  said  to  be  partly  due  to  American  indifference 
to  the  diplomatic  systems  of  Europe;  if  you  are  going  to 
end  with  something  Hke  that,  you  must  reahze  also  that 
you  should  begin  by  stating  your  thesis  with  comprehensive 
imagination : 

If  one  could  stand  on  the  edge  of  the  moon  and  look  down  through 
a  couple  of  thousand  years  on  human  politics,  it  would  be  apparent 
that  everything  that  happened  on  the  earth  was  directly  dependent 
on  everything  else  that  happened  there.  Whether  the  Italian 
peasant  shall  eat  salt  with  his  bread,  depends  on  Bismarck.  Whether 
the  prison  system  of  Russia  shall  be  improved,  depends  on  the 
ministry  of  Great  Britain.  If  Lord  Beaconsfield  is  in  power,  there 
is  no  leisure  in  Russia  for  domestic  reform.  In  like  manner,  the 
good  things  that  happen  are  each  the  product  of  all  extant  con- 


LEARNING  TO  WRITE  29 

ditions.  Constitutional  government  in  England  qualifies  the  whole 
of  western  Europe;  our  slaves  were  not  set  free  without  the  as- 
sistance of  every  liberal  mind  in  Europe;  and  the  thoughts  which 
we  think  in  our  closet  aflfect  the  fate  of  the  Boer  in  South  Africa. 

Such  a  beginning  is  more  nearly  adequate  to  the  subject. 
On  second  thought  you  will  perceive  that  it  is  by  no  means 
too  fanciful.  Turn  to  the  last  essay  in  this  volume,  and, 
after  reading  three  or  four  pages,  ask  yourself  if  this  in- 
troduction is  not  still  enlarging  your  imagination  to  the 
measure  of  the  subject. 

A  glance  at  several  essays  with  which  you  are  already 
familiar  will  show  you  the  effect  that  the  beginning  has  on 
the  treatment  and  extent  of  the  subject.  One  may  raise 
expectation,  as  Carlyle  does  in  his  essay  on  Scott,  by  asking 
a  central  question  that  secures  light  from  each  detail  as 
he  proceeds,  Was  Scott  a  great  man  ? — a  question  requiring 
obviously  some  definition  of  greatness  in  ambition  and  in 
achievement,  and  leading  naturally  to  an  analysis  of  Scott's 
life,  which  shows  in  what  ways  Scott  was  or  failed  to  be 
great.  Brand  Whitlock  begins  his  little  biography  of 
Lincoln  by  saying  that  Lincoln's  story,  rightly  told,  is  the 
epic  of  America.  Hutton  begins  his  famous  criticism  of 
Shelley  and  his  poetry  with  nine  or  ten  pages  of  seemingly 
random  illustration  and  comment,  which  lead  you  to  believe 
with  him  that  the  dominant  quality  in  Shelley's  acts  and 
in  his  thinking  is  caprice;  the  meaning  of  all  that  follows 
in  the  essay  is  modified  and  illuminated  by  this  primary 
admission.    A  good  beginning  is  an  impetus  that  lasts. 

Obviously  you  will  not  always  be  able  to  think  of  far- 
reaching  beginnings  for  your  subjects.  But  if  you  under- 
stand the  principle  involved,  you  will  do  better  with  them 
than  otherwise,  and  especially  will  you  be  apt  to  go  back, 
after  reaching  a  certain  point  in  the  theme,  and  give  the 


30  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

beginning  a  more  significant  turn — a  turn  that  more  truly 
prophesies  the  point  you  have  reached  and  the  line  you  are 
proceeding  on.  (And  this  point,  by  the  way,  where  you 
feel  the  need  of  starting  over  again,  is  usually  the  psycholog- 
ical moment  for  working  up  more  completely  the  out- 
line of  the  whole  theme.) 

Often,  it  is  true,  there  is  the  greatest  difficulty  in  start- 
ing at  all,  even  when  there  is  no  vagueness  about  the  main 
issue.  You  can  see  the  end  clearly,  like  the  gentleman  who 
knew  that  he  wished  to  propose  marriage  but  could  never 
think  how  to  begin  such  a  terrible  conversation.  He  was 
advised  to  begin  with  the  end.  And  in  writing  it  is  an 
excellent  method  to  begin  close  to  the  end,  for  then  you 
may  encircle  your  subject  and  return  to  the  same  point, 
which  will  usually  give  the  subject  a  recognizable  shape, 
or  at  least  a  certain  mechanical  unity  that,  on  second 
thought,  can  be  turned  into  real  unity.  It  is  the  least 
random  of  all  methods  which  can  be  objectively  described. 
Three  points,  if  the  first  and  last  are  close  together,  indi- 
cate at  once  the  exact  circumference  of  a  circle.  If  the  first 
point  is  not  close  to  the  last  it  is  more  difficult  to  visualize 
the  area. 

So  much  for  the  influence  of  the  beginning  on  the  trend  ^ 
and  end  of  an  essay.  To  raise  expectation,  to  lift  the  eye 
toward  the  end,  to  equip  the  reader  with  a  word,  a  phrase, 
or  an  image  that  shall  be  a  light  on  the  way,  and  to  mark 
the  extent  of  the  theme — these  are  the  chief  functions  of  a 
good  beginning. 

m 

As  you  proceed  to  develop  the  trend  of  the  discussion, 
which  has  been  largely  defined  by  beginning  well  and  by 
making  an  improved  outline,  you  still  feel  the  need  of 


LEARNING  TO  WRITE  31 

some  kind  of  test  to  tell  you  if  its  substance  has  a  real, 
inherent  imity,  and  not  just  a  mechanical  or  verbal  unity. 
Do  the  central  thoughts  cohere,  or  just  the  peripheries  of 
their  expression? 

It  is  probably  well  to  trust  at  first  to  your  natural  logic, 
to  the  sequences  which  a  certain  rapidity  and  fluency  of 
composition  often  create.  Then,  when  a  definite  division 
of  the  work  has  been  thus  completed,  if  you  will  write 
opposite  each  paragraph  a  sentence,  or  underline  in  each 
paragraph  a  sentence  which  expresses  the  chief  purpose  of 
the  paragraph,  and  read  those  sentences  together,  you  will 
have  the  best  criticism  of  your  work  that  can  be  devised. 
Do  these  summary  sentences,  when  thus  read,  form  of 
themselves  a  logical,  pointed  paragraph  ?  Are  they  in  their 
best  order,  and  do  they  fit  together  easily?  If  they  can 
be  changed  about  to  advantage,  the  chances  are  that  the 
paragraphs  they  represent  should  change  places.  Or,  if 
they  can  be  changed  about  without  especially  embarrassing 
their  sense,  the  chances  are  that  there  is  a  corresponding 
lack  of  emphasis  or  lack  of  proper  subordination  in  the 
parts  they  represent.  Also,  these  summary  sentences,  if 
not  already  in  the  paragraphs  and  in  some  significant  posi- 
tion there,  should  nearly  always  be  so  incorporated.  They 
should  be  most  carefully  and  pointedly  worded.  They  are 
the  bones,  the  ribs,  of  the  whole  matter,  the  things  that 
count  most  in  giving  it  shape.  Again,  if  they  do  not  fit 
together  as  they  are,  but  need  to  be  supplemented  by  other 
connecting  sentences  to  make  their  sequence  plain,  see  to 
it  that  these  connecting  sentences  are  also  incorporated 
and,  when  necessary,  new  paragraphs  written  to  correspond. 
If  you  cannot  devise  connecting  sentences  for  them  at  all, 
then  they  are  superfluous,  and  the  parts  they  stand  for 
should  be  cut  out.    A  large  part  of  poor  writing  and  super- 


32  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

ficial  thinking  is  due  to  a  lack  of  these  features  by  which 
we  recognize  more  sharply  the  character  and  influence  of 
thoughts  as  we  write.  And,  just  so,  their  presence  is  a 
large  part  of  the  enduring  impression  of  great  writings. 

Such  a  method,  which,  after  some  practise  becomes  a 
thoroughly  conscious  habit  embodying  itself  in  the  proc- 
esses of  thought  and  not  requiring  an  external  application, 
includes,  obviously,  many  minor  points  in  organizing  detail. 
One  of  these  I  wish  especially  to  describe — the  principle 
of  emphasis. 

IV 

In  a  Gothic  arch  every  stone  has  its  place.  Remove 
any  stone,  the  arch  falls.  But  while  every  stone  is  a  neces- 
sity, we  think  of  some  of  them  as  being  more  important 
than  the  others,  especially  the  bases  and  the  keystone.  If 
a  stone  cross  surmounts  the  keystone,  we  think  of  the  key- 
stone as  supporting  it,  though  it  may  be  there  to  give  weight 
to  the  keystone.  We  say,  in  turn,  that  the  arch  supports 
the  keystone,  that  the  flying  buttresses  support  the  arch, 
that  the  pinnacles  on  the  buttresses  add  their  weight  to 
resist  the  thrust  of  the  arch.  Remove  the  pinnacles  and  the 
stone  cross  is  less  secure. 

Everything  in  this  structure  is  necessary  and  important 
because  it  is  subordinate  to  some  other  part.  It  is  indis- 
pensable only  because  of  this  relationship.  The  cross  and 
the  pinnacles  look  like  ornaments  or  like  expressions  of 
the  purpose  of  the  substructure;  in  reality  they  play  their 
own  indispensable  parts. 

This  principle  of  subordination  is  the  principle  of  em- 
phasis. In  writing,  if  you  would  sharpen  the  outline  of 
yoiu:  idea  (an  exposition,  an  argument,  a  story),  subordinate 


LEARNING  TO  WRITE  33 

many  parts  to  the  few  you  wish  to  emphasize,  make  the 
few  thoroughly  dependent  on  the  many.  Apply  this  Gothic 
test.  See  that  you  do  not  place  as  co-ordinate  parts  that 
depend  directly  or  indirectly  on  each  other,  that  have,  in 
some  measure,  a  cause-and-effect  relationship.  You  may 
wish  to  emphasize  the  cause  or  the  effect,  as  the  case  may 
be,  but  you  will  bring  out  the  significance  of  neither  if  they 
are  not  represented  in  their  proper  relationship. 

If,  for  example,  in  your  discussion  of  the  interdependence 
of  human  actions,  you  wish  to  emphasize  point  eleven,  about 
our  international  duty  to  be  hberally  educated  and  to  help 
in  the  good  government  of  our  httle  locality,  make  points 
thirteen  and  fourteen  lead  up  to  it  by  saying  that,  if  liberal 
opinion  ruled  the  world,  the  great  war  might  not  have  come, 
and  it  is,  therefore,  our  chief  public  duty  to  be  liberally 
and  democratically  educated.  Suppose  you  wish  to  em- 
phasize your  statement  of  the  general  principle  of  the  unity 
of  human  nature,  make  the  story  of  Mary  Stuart  simply 
an  illustration  of  it.  Suppose  you  wish  to  emphasize  that 
story,  then  say  that  it  is  from  such  a  story  as  that  of  Mary 
Stuart  that  we  learn  most  about  the  nature  of  the  principle. 

True  emphasis  is  a  principle  inherent  in  structure.  Being 
arbitrarily  emphatic,  talking  loud,  reiterating,  beating  your 
breast,  swearing  by  all  the  gods  that  what  you  are  saying 
is  important,  are  the  resources  not  of  eloquence  but  of 
flatulence.  The  ornaments  of  speech  should  play  their  part 
like  the  ornaments  in  the  Gothic  design,  and  their  sig- 
nificance should  result  largely  from  their  place,  their  ar- 
rangement, in  the  design.  I  once  heard  a  distinguished 
speaker  say  that  every  lasting  impression  he  had  made  was 
due  more  to  his  having  simply  managed  to  put  the  horse 
before  the  cart  than  to  any  particular  attraction  in  the  rig 
itself. 


34  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 


In  describing  methods  for  organizing  detail  we  have  not 
spoken  entirely  from  the  writer's  point  of  view,  but  from 
the  reader's  as  well.  All  good  methods  of  writing  are,  of 
course,  methods  of  guiding  the  reader.  We  try  to  write 
so  that  the  reader  will  see  his  way  clearly  and  not  grope 
about,  so  that  he  will  be  impressed  and  not  confused,  and 
so  that  we  shall  not  have  to  explain  at  length  over  and  over 
what  we  mean  and  whither  we  are  going.  At  street  comers 
are  sign-posts — not  in  themselves  obtrusive,  but  part  of  the 
scheme  of  the  town.  We  think  of  them  as  belonging  to  the 
streets,  like  the  lamps  to  which  they  are  often  attached. 
So  in  a  well-organized  piece  of  writing  there  are,  as  part  of 
the  plan,  a  good  many  incidental  guides. 

That  these  guides  may  not  appear  as  superficial  formal- 
ities for  the  benefit  of  some  not-overinteUigent  reader,  it 
is  most  desirable  that  they  should  be  part  of  the  general 
attitude  and  manner  of  the  writer  himself.  The  older 
novehsts  and  essayists,  with  a  charming  courtesy  toward 
their  guest,  the  gentle  reader,  were  in  the  habit  of  taking 
him  aside  informally  and  explaining  how  matters  really 
stood.  Modern  methods  are  perhaps  more  subtle,  but  too 
often  they  are  not  employed  at  all.  Impersonality  is  the 
growing  characteristic  of  style.  The  reader  is,  in  a  certain 
sense,  always  the  writer's  guest,  and  most  of  the  niles  for 
receiving  and  entertaining  a  guest,  and  especially  for  not 
boring  him,  may  be  followed  with  benefit  by  the  Uterary 
host.  Having  our  house  fit  to  be  seen,  we  take  a  certain 
pride  in  showing  a  guest  about  till  he  has  learned  his  way — 
our  way,  that  is.  We  make  allowance  for  his  ignorance  of 
what  to  us  is  the  commonplace  of  habit;  we  keep  him  posted 
on  our  plans  and  arrangements;  we  occupy  ourselves  with 


LEARNING  TO  WRITE  35 

him  to  a  considerable  extent,  and  certainly  never  quite 
forget  that  he  is  with  us.  At  the  same  time  we  are  careful 
not  to  bore  him.  These  things  are  in  the  intention  of  any 
socially  inclined  writer.  He  accomplishes  them  naturally. 
They  are  part  of  his  style,  his  literary  manners.  He  is 
always  thus  doubly  thoughtful,  of  his  subject  and  of  his 
reader;  and  the  more  complex  his  subject,  the  more  pains 
he  must  take;  for  the  reader  and  the  subject  are  always 
close  together  in  his  mind,  two  aspects  of  the  same  problem. 
In  this  matter  of  guiding  the  reader,  there  is  perhaps  one 
rule  of  more  frequent  application  than  any  other  in  writing: 
Proceed  from  the  general  to  the  particular.  In  other  words, 
when  you  have  made  a  statement  hasten  to  illustrate  it. 
Be  specific.  "The  Germans  are  going  to  win;  they  have 
kept  the  war  almost  entirely  on  foreign  soil."  "Byron  is  a 
great  poet;  read  the  last  stanza  of  the  fifteenth  canto  of 
'Don  Juan.'  "  So  far  as  you  are  concerned,  the  first  state- 
ments may  mean  something.  So  far  as  the  reader  is  con- 
cerned, it  is  only  the  second  statements  that  count.  Most 
writing  is  simply  the  process  of  illustrating  our  opinion; 
and  I  venture  to  suggest  that  the  greatest  faults  in  writ- 
ing, which  correspond  exactly  to  the  greatest  weaknesses 
in  thinking,  could  be  described  by  saying  that  a  gen- 
eralization has  no  eyes.  Dulness,  vagueness,  incoherence, 
bluster,  repetition,  gabble,  pomposity,  inanity,  twaddle, 
these  are  qualities  that  belong  to  authors  who  are  deaf  to 
the  reader's  cry,  "Give  me  an  illustration!"  It  should 
also  be  said,  however,  that  the  reader  who  cannot  follow 
closely  connected  abstract  reasoning  misses  the  deepest 
truths,  which,  as  Shelley  once  said,  are  "imageless";  and 
no  set  of  illustrations  unaccompanied  by  the  criticism  of 
comprehensive,  enlarging,  or  qualifying  statements  are  apt 
to  give  a  fair  view  of  the  subject. 


36  COLLEGE  AND   THE  FUTURE 

The  examination  of  a  number  of  serious  writings,  such  as 
follow  in  this  book,  even  the  examination  of  the  first  few 
paragraphs  of  each,  will  convince  you  that  the  normal 
method  of  thinking  about  any  subject  is  that  of  alternating 
general  and  specific  considerations.  Nor  do  I  know  any 
exercise  so  beneficial  to  the  writer  as  to  plan  rigidly  a  few 
themes  which  consist  entirely  of  a  set  of  illustrations  fol- 
lowing an  expressed  opinion,  and  in  which  each  paragraph 
is  a  set  of  more  specific  statements  after  one  rather  general 
statement.  To  hold  to  this  idea  rigidly  and  see  just  what 
it  does  for  coherence  and  point  is  often  a  revelation  in 
regard  to  literary  method. 

Besides  looking  for  a  series  of  lamps  along  the  way,  the 
reader  is  also  hoping  to  arrive  on  a  series  of  eminences  from 
which  he  can  get  a  view.  He  wishes  to  look  back,  to  look 
ahead,  and  to  realize  where  he  is.  For  merely  coming  out 
somewhere  at  the  end  does  not  satisfy  him.  The  writer 
must  therefore  provide  a  number  of  vantage  points  where 
he  tells  what  he  is  going  to  do,  and  others  where  he  tells 
what  he  has  done,  and  still  others  where  he  tells  what  he 
has  not  done  and  has  no  intention  of  doing.  All  these 
points  he  must  reach  at  the  psychological  moments:  when 
the  reader  is  growing  expectant,  never  before;  and  when 
he  is  trying  to  recall,  never  after  he  has  totally  forgotten. 
Moreover,  the  writer  must  not  linger  at  these  points  be- 
yond the  psychological  moment  when  the  reader  under- 
stands. A  word  or  a  phrase  will  often  suffice  to  sum  up  a 
long  matter;  a  new  turn  to  a  phrase  is  often  all  the  reader 
needs  to  point  him  ahead.  We  remember  single  words 
and  phrases  far  better  than  long  sentences,  and  are  guided 
by  them  more  easily.  Indeed,  the  importance  of  the  single 
word  is  so  great  that,  like  the  maker  of  maxims,  Joseph 
Joubert,  the  man  interested  in  guiding  his  reader  is  con- 


LEARNING  TO  WRITE  37 

tinually  taken  up  with  the  effort  to  reduce  his  pages  to  a 
paragraph,  his  paragraph  to  a  sentence,  his  sentence  to 
a  word. 

The  art  of  describing  one's  own  purpose  brightly  enough 
to  shed  some  real  light  on  it,  that  is  one  of  the  rare  things 
in  literary  art.  It  is  the  secret  of  Lincoln's  power,  of  which 
his  Gettysburg  address  is  not  the  only  example.  It  is 
a  large  part  of  Stevenson's  charm — how  certain  phrases 
keep  ringing  in  the  ear  as  one  flies  after  him  from  fancy  to 
fancy,  guided  by  the  echo !  It  is  the  essential  brilliance  of 
Carlyle,  whose  guiding  words  flash  like  swords  across  his 
page.  It  is  in  the  nature  of  every  man  who  is  a  force  in 
letters,  from  the  poet  with  his  refrain  to  the  statesman 
with  his  shibboleth.  And  when  one  has  caught  the  ring  of 
these  words  one  knows  something  more  of  a  matter  than 
is  evident  from  the  logic  of  its  structure. 

VI 

Clearness,  the  Iticidris  ordo,  is  the  fundamental  thing  in 
art,  but  not  its  consummation — though  so  to  regard  it  is  a 
present  popular  superstition.  "Whatever  you  do,  be  clear," 
the  successful  writers  and  practical  teachers  of  this  practical 
success-loving  generation  are  always  telling  us.  The  advice 
usually  stops  there;  for  practical  people  like  to  think  that 
the  world  is  all  made  up  of  real  objective  facts  and  ideas, 
and  that  the  writer  should  try  to  see  them  as  impersonally 
as  possible  in  order  to  see  them  clearly.  Consequently, 
if  the  word  style  is  mentioned  at  all,  it  is  only  to  say  that 
the  best  style  is  that  of  which  we  are  least  aware — "just 
as  the  best-dressed  man  is  he  whose  clothes  are  not  notice- 
able, and  the  best  manners  are  those  which  occasion  no 
remark  one  way  or  the  other."     But  the  analogy  is  not 


38  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

true  to  nature;  for  the  best  style  is  no  more  that  of  which 
we  are  least  aware  than  the  best-dressed  man  is  he  who 
wears  no  clothes  at  all,  or  the  best  manners  are  those  of 
complete  silence  and  self-efifacement.  But  if  we  have  been 
misled  by  mere  words,  it  is  in  theory  rather  than  in  practise. 
There  is  surely  no  lack  of  vivid  and  picturesque  style  now- 
adays. Nor  do  we  really  mean,  in  emphasizing  our  practical 
maxim,  **  Whatever  you  do,  be  clear,"  instead  of  the  older 
maxim  of  fine  manners  and  taste,  "Qiwi  que  vous  ecriviez, 
edtez  la  bassesse,"  that  the  personal  characteristics  of  a 
man's  writing  are  unworthy  of  attention.  For  undoubtedly 
there  is  more  excellently  mannered  writing  at  present  than 
in  the  day  of  "manners,"  and  more  appreciation  both  of  the 
essentials  and  of  the  fine  shades  of  literary  art.  If  we  have 
been  misled  in  theory,  it  is  by  a  set  of  people  who  under- 
stand nothing  which  they  cannot  teach,  and  who  have  not 
yet  discovered  an  exact  pedagogical  method  for  "teaching 
style."  If  we  are  not  cultivating  our  own  personalities 
enough  in  writing,  it  may  be  because  we  read  too  rarely  in 
the  thoroughly  written  books — the  books  in  which  the 
writer  has  lived  as  he  wrote — and  because  we  read  too  much 
in  the  newspapers,  where  a  certain  impersonality  has  to  be 
consciously  cultivated  in  order  to  secure,  in  reports  from 
a  hundred  different  pens,  some  unity  of  tone.  For  it  is  a 
curious  paradox  that  seeing  life  through  the  deep  eyes  of  a 
dominating  personality  is  to  discover  our  own  point  of  view, 
while  seeing  life  impersonally  in  the  passing,  helter-skelter 
show  of  successive  journals  is  to  see  it  always  at  second 
hand.  The  vivid  reality  of  things  is  in  the  minds  and  im- 
aginations of  men,  not  in  the  things  themselves. 

So,  when  we  say  that  lucidity  is  our  ideal,  we  do  not 
mean  mere  plainness.  We  mean  also  vividness  and  pic- 
turesqueness;    and  though  one  general  quality  does  not 


LEARNING   TO  WRITE  39 

comprehend  all  the  excellencies  of  writing,  it  is  helpful  to 
those  learning  to  write  to  think  of  many  qualities  con- 
tributing to  a  final  clear  end  rather  than  of  many  qualities 
being  cultivated  for  their  own  sakes.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
tone,  manner,  sustained  "rhetoric,"  finely  flowing  sequence, 
are  qualities  not  often  existing  or  even  possible  for  their 
own  sakes  or  for  the  sake  of  any  intention  quite  different 
from  the  intention  to  be  clear.  They  are  qualities  which 
add  at  once  to  the  clarity  of  our  impressions.  If  Mr. 
Dooley  writes  one  of  his  humoresques  on  grand  opera,  the 
manner  of  the  whole  thing,  the  fantastic  exaggerations  of 
his  mental  dialect,  are  for  the  purpose  of  making  us  see 
some  of  the  characteristics  of  grand  opera  more  clearly. 
Nor  can  we  see  them  at  all  from  his  point  of  view  unless 

we  laugh.     If addresses  to  us  a  stirring  and  lofty 

appeal,  the  eloquence  is  for  the  purpose  of  making  us  feel 
and  reason  more  emphatically.  But  the  man  who  does  not 
catch  the  tone,  the  manner,  of  these  things  is  neither  stirred 
in  the  one  case  nor  entertained  in  the  other,  and  conse- 
quently misses  the  point  of  their  meaning.  Tone  is,  there- 
fore, part  of  any  meaning,  intellectual  or  emotional,  and 
those  people  who  do  not  care  for  manner  but  want  only 
the  "practical  gist  of  the  thing"  miss  the  very  point  they 
are  after.  They  beg  the  question;  they  do  not  care  for 
the  meaning.  I  remember  saying  once  to  a  Spaniard  that 
few  Americans  seem  to  care  for  the  humor  of  Don  Quixote 
until,  perhaps,  the  vast  moral  of  the  satire  begins  to  dawn 
on  them.  "That,"  he  replied,  "is  simply  because  you 
cannot  perceive  in  English  the  delicious  tone  in  which  each 
little  bit  is  written."  Now,  it  is  in  that  tone,  of  course, 
that  the  real  satirical  meaning  lies.  Until  every  intention 
of  the  writer  is  perceived,  one  cannot  understand  a  work 
wholly.     In  a  translation  there  is  sure  to  be  something 


40  COLLEGE  AND   THE  FUTURE 

lacking  from  the  author's  intention  in  his  choice  of  words 
to  convey  his  meaning;  and  therefore,  no  matter  how  exact 
the  translation  may  be,  the  meaning  is  not  quite  the  same 
as  in  the  original.  It  is  rather  hopeless  to  translate  poetry, 
or  any  writings  where  the  meaning  is  so  largely  conveyed 
by  the  tone,  by  the  sequences  of  sound,  by  the  connotations 
of  words  that  are  vividly  local.  What  meaning  there  is  in 
the  translation  may  be  perfectly  clear,  but  it  is  not  a  fully 
toned  clearness,  and  we  say  we  do  not  get  *'the  spirit  of 
the  original." 

The  element  which  we  have  in  mind  here  is  obviously 
not  just  lucidity.  It  is  another  part  of  a  writer's  meaning 
that  appears  to  be  best  described  by  the  word  tone,  because 
this  term  includes  the  idea  of  choices  in  words,  the  sounds 
of  phrases  and  sentences,  and  the  psychological  impression 
on  us.  We  call  this  impression  smoothness,  choppiness, 
bluntness,  floridity,  grace,  richness,  thinness,  as  the  case 
may  be.  Obviously,  in  all  writings  there  is  some  kind  of 
tone,  though  in  many  it  is  so  flat  and  so  slightly  accented 
as  to  be  unindividual,  or  so  crudely  developed  and  un- 
harmonious  that  we  receive  only  irksome  impressions.  But 
when  the  tone  is  well  modulated,  whether  it  be  prominent 
or  restrained,  so  long  as  it  suits  the  rest  of  the  meaning  we 
have  a  definite  satisfaction  in  feeling  it.  Temperamentally 
we  may  prefer  one  kind  of  tone  and  meaning  to  another. 
We  may  prefer  Macaulay's  history  to  Carlyle's;  the  essays 
of  H.  G.  Wells  to  those  of  Bernard  Shaw;  Newman,  as 
a  preacher,  to  Matthew  Arnold;  Tennyson,  as  a  dramatist, 
to  Browning.  The  appreciation  of  literary  art,  however, 
comes  from  a  sense  of  what  is  suitable  between  tone  and 
clearness  in  any  meaning.  Well-toned  clearness  is  the 
object  of  any  writer's  best  effort. 

Ultimately  you  will  perceive  that  this  is  what  you  are 


LEARNING  TO  WRITE  41 

always  trying  for — to  make  the  thing  ring  true,  to  cast  out 
or  make  whole  the  dead  places  and  to  harmonize  all  the 
variations.    For  a  certain  poet's  intention,  such  a  line  as 

"The  weirdly  wistful  wailing  of  the  melancholy  flute" 

suits  perfectly.  Supposing  it  had  first  been  written,  ''the 
sad  and  wistful  wailing,"  is  not  the  tone  of  "wistful  wailing" 
marked  enough  to  have  immediately  suggested  "weirdly" 
as  the  word  to  complete  the  sensuous  meaning?  "Veni, 
vidi,  vicir^  "I  came,  I  saw,  I  conquered!"  How  much 
less  of  the  original  meaning  would  be  preserved  if  we  said, 
"I  arrived,  I  saw,  I  was  victorious!"  and  how  little  or 
nothing  in,  "I  got  there,  I  looked  around,  and  I  came  out 
ahead."  If  you  have  written  the  last,  which  is  all  in  the 
same  (ragged)  tone,  there  is  no  chance  for  improvement 
except  by  erasing  the  whole  thing  and  beginning  over. 
But  if  you  have  written  the  second,  you  will  be  guided  by 
the  tone  of  "I  saw,  I  was  victorious,"  to  give  it  more 
uniformity  by  saying,  "I  saw,  I  conquered";  and  you  will 
hardly  fail  to  realize  that  "I  came"  chimes  in  better  than, 
"I  arrived,"  in  bluntness  and  brevity,  for  the  whole  effect.^ 
You  improve  upon  yourself.  You  imitate  your  own 
better  moments,  and  thus  you  enlarge  your  glimpses  of 
your  true  meaning.  You  work  up  on  either  side  of  what 
strikes  you  as  your  true  level  of  well-toned  clearness,  till  all 
is  in  a  graded  relationship  with  that  level.  To  know  how 
to  work  skilfully  and  rapidly  in  this  kind  of  revision  is  the 
final  thing  in  learning  to  write.  It  requires  taste;  it  re- 
quires ability  to  listen  to  your  own  style  critically;  and  it 

*  A  good  exercise  toward  an  understanding  of  tone  is  to  paraphrase  a  page 
of  one  of  Stevenson's  Elssays  in  this  volume,  retaining  in  the  paraphrase  every 
now  and  then  a  sentence  from  the  original.  The  tone  of  the  original  may  be 
then,  perhaps,  more  sharply  discovered. 


42  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

requires  power  to  make  every  now  and  then  a  phrase  or  a 
paragraph  worthy  of  being  looked  up  to.  If  it  were  not 
for  thi^  last  and  fundamental  necessity  of  thorough  and 
original  thought,  the  whole  might  be  described  as  the  way 
in  which  we  may  all  become  great  writers.  It  is  the  method, 
so  far  as  there  is  one,  that  all  great  writers  have  used ;  and 
that  it  is  the  natural  method  must  be  obvious  from  your 
own  experience. 

It  is  already  your  method.  But  perhaps  you  have  not 
made  the  most  of  it.  Perhaps  you  revise  here  and  there, 
in  much  the  same  way  that  one  usually  begins  to  work  at 
a  picture-puzzle  after  the  pieces  are  dumped  on  the  table, 
putting  together  scatteringly  any  two  pieces  that  fit.  There 
is,  however,  little  similarity  between  the  mechanical  fitness 
in  a  picture-puzzle  and  the  idea  of  general  suitability  that 
one  keeps  in  mind  while  revising  a  composition.  Don't  use 
picture-puzzle  methods;  there  are  no  better  and  worse 
pieces  in  a  picture-puzzle.  But  perhaps  you  do  not  clearly 
distinguish,  in  writing,  your  better  tones  and  phrases  from 
the  mediocre.  It  is  a  very  poor  critic  who  cannot  show 
them  to  you.  Yet,  better  than  any  critic  or  teacher,  who 
can,  after  all,  be  little  more  than  a  wide-awake  audience  for 
you,  greeting  with  alternate  applause  and  hisses  your  efforts, 
is  some  long,  enthusiastic  reading  in  an  author  who  has  a 
strong  smack  of  language  about  him,  like  Carlyle,  or  Kip- 
ling, or  Joseph  Conrad,  or  Browning.  You  must  discover 
your  own  book,  just  as  you  have  ultimately  to  discover 
yourself;  and  "your  own  book,"  if  it  happens  to  be  a  true 
and  great  one,  will  be  a  sort  of  mirror  to  you  and  will  hasten 
your  understanding  of  many  things.  You  will  begin  to  hear 
your  own  words  more  distinctly  and  to  recognize  what  is 
t)^ical  of  your  best  moments  of  thought.  For  reading  ac- 
customs you  to  minds  definitely  engaged  in  these  processes. 


LEARNING  TO  WRITE  43 

and  in  the  intimacy  of  ''your  own  book"  you  will  at  last 
understand  them  critically  and  thoroughly. 

This  is  not  the  old  doctrine  of  imitating  the  other  man, 
nor  yet  the  fallacy  of  trying  to  be  original  all  by  yourself. 
It  is  the  doctrine  of  understanding  the  other  man,  and  then 
of  imitating,  not  him,  but  yourself.  It  is  the  doctrine  of 
inheriting  the  past,  not  of  dying  with  it.  It  is  a  description, 
I  believe,  of  the  way  in  which  every  great  artist  has  in- 
dividually learned  his  art.  Sooner  or  later  he  has  thought 
and  expressed  something  thoroughly,  finely,  compactly; 
and  Ustening  to  the  tone  of  it,  how  well  it  suits  its  meaning, 
he  has  caught  the  trick  of  style  from  himself.  So,  it  is  not 
a  trick,  after  all;   it  is  simply  himself  at  last  coming  out. 

This  is  a  fundamental  idea;  it  is  in  every  part  of  life. 
You  learn  to  swim  three  strokes,  and  you  are  at  once  guess- 
ing about  your  possibilities  for  a  mile.  The  picture  in 
your  father's  house  which  you  have  looked  at  for  years 
makes  you  suddenly  aware  of  its  real  beauty — it  is  also 
something  in  yourself  that  you  are  conscious  of.  For  the 
first  time  you  play  an  old  piece  in  the  exercise  book  with 
an  expression  that  is  your  own,  and  you  are  at  the  entrance 
of  the  whole  realm  of  music.  What  is  it  you  have  heard  in 
that  piece — somebody  else's  notes  ?  Return  to  your  favorite 
book,  a  book  like  Middlemarch,  after  three  years.  It  is 
all  new,  you  say.  What  is  new?  Your  own  experiences 
and  your  latest  thoughts,  reflected  in  that  mirror.  Art 
is  ever  fresh,  so  long  as  you  do  not  grow  stale.  It  takes 
the  measure  of  your  increasing  maturity  and  of  your  hopes. 
It  cleanses  your  nature  by  showing  you  what  you  must 
outgrow,  by  developing  the  beautiful  and  enjoyable  part 
of  you,  and  by  flashing  before  you  vividly  those  things 
that  you  do  not  yet  understand  but  may  not  remain  in- 
different to. 


44      COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

Once  having  recognized  the  truth  of  this,  a  general  truth 
which  applies  to  much  in  one's  character  besides  the  power 
to  write,  the  man  of  character  finds  that  it  sets  before  him 
the  sternest  of  ideals — the  necessity  of  striving  to  enlarge 
and,  at  the  same  time,  encompass  his  true  possibilities,  of 
not  settling  back  into  his  adequate  mediocrities.  For  the 
discovery  of  power,  while  it  is  an  inspiration,  does  not  insure 
success.  Mediocrity  is  strong  in  all  of  us.  It  usually  con- 
quers. And  because  it  often  buries  us  so  comfortably,  we 
come  to  regard  it  as  success  instead  of  the  other  thing  which 
is  rarely  comfortable  at  all — which  is  only  romantic  and 
moral,  an  unending  effort. 

It  is  in  this  light  that  the  far-reaching  comment  with 
which  we  began,  in  the  saying  that  the  problem  of  improv- 
ing a  man's  writing  is  usually  the  problem  of  improving  his 
character,  places  the  whole  matter  on  a  high  plane.  Most 
men  have,  at  one  time  or  another,  gHmpses  of  their  possible 
powers;  they  see  the  truth  they  long  to  believe  in,  they 
hear  the  words  they  fain  would  utter.  But  only  one  man 
in  a  thousand  has  the  patience,  persistence,  the  energy  for 
thoroughness,  and  the  romantic  egoism  that  enable  him 
to  enlarge  that  finest  area  in  his  nature,  and  to  protect  it 
inch  by  inch  against  the  encroachments  of  his  mediocrity 
and  his  self-satisfaction.  Self-satisfaction  is  the  story  of 
most  of  us;  self-reahzation  only  of  the  few.  Nowhere  is 
this  more  commonly  to  be  seen  than  in  writing.  Yet  we 
have  all  been  given  our  little  bit  of  magic,  the  open  sesame 
both  to  our  own  minds  and  to  the  secrets  of  art. 


II 

THE  QUESTION  OF  STYLE  ^ 

ARNOLD   BENNETT 

In  discussing  the  value  of  particular  books,  I  have  heard 
people  say — ^people  who  were  timid  about  expressing  their 
views  of  literature  in  the  presence  of  literary  men:  "It 
may  be  bad  from  a  literary  point  of  view,  but  there  are 
very  good  things  in  it."  Or:  "I  dare  say  the  style  is  very 
bad,  but  really  the  book  is  very  interesting  and  suggestive." 
Or:  ''I'm  not  an  expert,  and  so  I  never  bother  my  head 
about  good  style.  All  I  ask  for  is  good  matter.  And  when 
I  have  got  it,  critics  may  say  what  they  like  about  the  book." 
And  many  other  similar  remarks,  all  showing  that  in  the 
minds  of  the  speakers  there  existed  a  notion  that  style  is 
something  supplementary  to,  and  distinguishable  from, 
matter;  a  sort  of  notion  that  a  writer  who  wanted  to  be 
classical  had  first  to  find  and  arrange  his  matter,  and  then 
dress  it  up  elegantly  in  a  costume  of  style,  in  order  to  please 
beings  called  literary  critics. 

This  is  a  misapprehension.  Style  cannot  be  distinguished 
from  matter.  When  a  writer  conceives  an  idea  he  conceives 
it  in  a  form  of  words.  That  form  of  words  constitutes  his 
style,  and  it  is  absolutely  governed  by  the  idea.  The  idea 
can  only  exist  in  words,  and  it  can  only  exist  in  one  form  of 
words.    You  cannot  say  exactly  the  same  thing  in  two  dif- 

'  Chapter  VI  of  Literary  Taste,  How  to  Form  It.  Reprinted  through  the 
courtesy  of  Arnold  Bennett  and  of  George  H.  Doran  Company. 

45 


46  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

ferent  ways.  Slightly  alter  the  expression,  and  you  slightly 
alter  the  idea.  Surely  it  is  obvious  that  the  expression 
cannot  be  altered  without  altering  the  thing  expressed! 
A  writer,  having  conceived  and  expressed  an  idea,  may, 
and  probably  will,  "polish  it  up."  But  what  does  he  polish 
up?  To  say  that  he  polishes  up  his  style  is  merely  to  say 
that  he  is  polishing  up  his  idea,  that  he  has  discovered  faults 
or  imperfections  in  his  idea,  and  is  perfecting  it.  An  idea 
exists  in  proportion  as  it  is  expressed;  it  exists  when  it  is 
expressed,  and  not  before.  It  expresses  itself.  A  clear  idea 
is  expressed  clearly,  and  a  vague  idea  vaguely.  You  need 
but  take  your  own  case  and  your  own  speech.  For  just 
as  science  is  the  development  of  common  sense,  so  is  litera- 
ture the  development  of  common  daily  speech.  The  dif- 
ference between  science  and  common  sense  is  simply  one 
of  degree;  similarly  with  speech  and  literature.  Well, 
when  you  "know  what  you  think,"  you  succeed  in  saying 
what  you  think,  in  making  yom-self  understood.  When 
you  "don't  know  what  to  think,"  your  expressive  tongue 
halts.  And  note  how  in  daily  life  the  characteristics  of 
your  style  follow  your  mood;  how  tender  it  is  when  you 
are  tender,  how  violent  when  you  are  violent.  You  have 
said  to  yourself  in  moments  of  emotion:  "If  only  I  could 
write — ,"  etc.  You  were  wrong.  You  ought  to  have  said: 
"If  only  I  could  think — on  this  high  plane."  When  you 
have  thought  clearly  you  have  never  had  any  difficulty 
in  sajdng  what  you  thought,  though  you  may  occasionally 
have  had  some  difficulty  in  keeping  it  to  yourself.  And 
when  you  cannot  express  yourself,  depend  upon  it  that 
you  have  nothing  precise  to  express,  and  that  what  incom- 
modes you  is  not  the  vain  desire  to  express,  but  the  vain 
desire  to  think  more  clearly.  All  this  just  to  illustrate  how 
style  and  matter  are  coexistent,  and  inseparable,  and  alike. 


THE  QUESTION  OF  STYLE  47 

You  cannot  have  good  matter  with  bad  style.  Examine 
the  point  more  closely.  A  man  wishes  to  convey  a  fine  idea 
to  you.  He  employs  a  form  of  words.  That  form  of  words 
is  his  style.  Having  read,  you  say:  "Yes,  this  idea  is  fine." 
The  writer  has  therefore  achieved  his  end.  But  in  what 
imaginable  circumstances  can  you  say:  **Yes,  this  idea  is 
fine,  but  the  style  is  not  fine"?  The  sole  medium  of  com- 
munication between  you  and  the  author  has  been  the  form 
of  words.  The  fine  idea  has  reached  you.  How?  In  the 
words,  by  the  words.  Hence  the  fineness  must  be  in  the 
words.  You  may  say,  superiorly:  *'He  has  expressed  him- 
self clumsily,  but  I  can  see  what  he  means."  By  what 
light  ?  By  something  in  the  words,  in  the  style.  That  some- 
thing is  fine.  Moreover,  if  the  style  is  clumsy,  are  you 
sure  that  you  can  see  what  he  means?  You  cannot  be 
quite  sure.  And,  at  any  rate,  you  cannot  see  distinctly. 
The  "matter"  is  what  actually  reaches  you,  and  it  must 
necessarily  be  affected  by  the  style. 

Still  further  to  comprehend  what  style  is,  let  me  ask  you 
to  think  of  a  writer's  style  exactly  as  you  would  think  of 
the  gestures  and  manners  of  an  acquaintance.  You  know 
the  man  whose  demeanor  is  "always  calm,"  but  whose 
passions  are  strong.  How  do  you  know  that  his  passions 
are  strong?  Because  he  "gives  them  away"  by  some  small, 
but  important,  part  of  his  demeanor,  such  as  the  twitching 
of  a  lip  or  the  whitening  of  the  knuckles  caused  by  clenching 
the  hand.  In  other  words,  his  demeanor,  fundamentally, 
is  not  calm.  You  know  the  man  who  is  always  "smoothly 
polite  and  agreeable,"  but  who  affects  you  unpleasantly. 
Why  does  he  affect  you  unpleasantly  ?  Because  he  is  tedious 
and  therefore  disagreeable,  and  because  his  politeness  is 
not  real  politeness.  You  know  the  man  who  is  awkward, 
shy,  clumsy,  but  who,  nevertheless,  impresses  you  with  a 


48  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

sense  of  dignity  and  force.  Why?  Because  mingled  with 
that  awkwardness  and  so  forth  is  dignity.  You  know  the 
blunt,  rough  fellow  whom  you  instinctively  guess  to  be 
affectionate — because  there  is  "something  in  his  tone"  or 
"something  in  his  eyes."  In  every  instance  the  demeanor, 
while  perhaps  seeming  to  be  contrary  to  the  character,  is 
really  in  accord  with  it.  The  demeanor  never  contradicts 
the  character.  It  is  one  part  of  the  character  that  contra- 
dicts another  part  of  the  character.  For,  after  all,  the  blunt 
man  is  blunt,  and  the  awkward  man  is  awkward,  and  these 
characteristics  are  defects.  The  demeanor  merely  expresses 
them.  The  two  men  would  be  better  if,  while  conserving 
their  good  qualities,  they  had  the  superficial  attributes  of 
smoothness  and  agreeableness  possessed  by  the  gentleman 
who  is  unpleasant  to  you.  And  as  regards  this  latter,  it  is 
not  his  superficial  attributes  which  are  unpleasant  to  you, 
but  his  other  quahties.  In  the  end  the  character  is  shown 
in  the  demeanor;  and  the  demeanor  is  a  consequence  of 
the  character  and  resembles  the  character.  So  with  style 
and  matter.  You  may  argue  that  the  blunt,  rough  man's 
demeanor  is  unfair  to  his  tenderness.  I  do  not  think  so. 
For  his  churlishness  is  really  very  trying  and  painful,  even 
to  the  man's  wife,  though  a  moment's  tenderness  will  make 
her  and  you  forget  it.  The  man  really  is  churHsh,  and  much 
more  often  than  he  is  tender.  His  demeanor  is  merely  just 
to  his  character.  So,  when  a  writer  annoys  you  for  ten 
pages  and  then  enchants  you  for  ten  lines,  you  must  not 
explode  against  his  style.  You  must  not  say  that  his  style 
won't  let  his  matter  "come  out."  You  must  remember  the 
churlish,  tender  man.  The  more  you  reflect,  the  more 
clearly  you  will  see  that  faults  and  excellences  of  style  are 
faults  and  excellences  of  matter  itself. 

One  of  the  most  striking  illustrations  of  this  neglected 


THE  QUESTION  OF  STYLE  49 

truth  is  Thomas  Carlyle.  How  often  has  it  been  said  that 
Carlyle's  matter  is  marred  by  the  harshness  and  the  ec- 
centricities of  his  style  ?  But  Carlyle's  matter  is  harsh  and 
eccentric  to  precisely  the  same  degree  as  his  style  is  harsh 
and  eccentric.  Carlyle  was  harsh  and  eccentric.  His  be- 
havior was  frequently  ridiculous,  if  it  were  not  abominable. 
His  judgments  were  often  extremely  bizarre.  When  you 
read  one  of  Carlyle's  fierce  diatribes,  you  say  to  yourself: 
"This  is  splendid.  The  man's  enthusiasm  for  justice  and 
truth  is  glorious."  But  you  also  say:  "He  is  a  little  un- 
just and  a  little  untruthful.  He  goes  too  far.  He  lashes 
too  hard."  These  things  are  not  the  style;  they  are  the 
matter.  And  when,  as  in  his  greatest  moments,  he  is  emo- 
tional and  restrained  at  once,  you  say:  "This  is  the  real 
Carlyle."  Kindly  notice  how  perfect  the  style  has  become ! 
No  harshnesses  or  eccentricities  now !  And  if  that  partic- 
ular matter  is  the  "real"  Carlyle,  then  that  particular  style 
is  Carlyle's  "real"  style.  But  when  you  say  "real"  you 
would  more  properly  say  "best."  "This  is  the  best  Carlyle." 
If  Carlyle  had  always  been  at  his  best  he  would  have  counted 
among  the  supreme  geniuses  of  the  world.  But  he  was  a 
mixture.  His  style  is  the  expression  of  the  mixture.  The 
faults  are  only  in  the  style  because  they  are  in  the  matter. 
You  will  find  that,  in  classical  literature,  the  style  always 
follows  the  mood  of  the  matter.  Thus,  Charles  Lamb's 
essay  on  Dream  Children  begins  quite  simply,  in  a  calm, 
narrative  manner,  enlivened  by  a  certain  quippishness 
concerning  the  children.  The  style  is  grave  when  great- 
grandmother  Field  is  the  subject,  and  when  the  author 
passes  to  a  rather  elaborate  impression  of  the  picturesque 
old  mansion  it  becomes,  as  it  were,  consciously  beautiful. 
This  beauty  is  intensified  in  the  description  of  the  still 
more  beautiful  garden.    But  the  real  dividing  point  of  the 


so      COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

essay  occurs  when  Lamb  approaches  his  elder  brother. 
He  unmistakably  marks  the  point  with  the  phrase:  ''Then, 
in  somewhat  a  more  heightened  tone,  I  told  how,"  etc.  Hence- 
forward the  style  increases  in  fervor  and  in  solemnity  until 
the  culmination  of  the  essay  is  reached:  ''And  while  I 
stood  gazing,  both  the  children  gradually  grew  fainter  to 
my  view,  receding  and  still  receding  till  nothing  at  last  but 
two  mournful  features  were  seen  in  the  uttermost  distance, 
which,  without  speech,  strangely  impressed  upon  me  the 
effects  of  speech.  .  .  ."  Throughout,  the  style  is  governed 
by  the  matter.  "Well,"  you  say,  "of  course  it  is.  It 
couldn't  be  otherwise.  If  it  were  otherwise  it  would  be 
ridiculous.  A  man  who  made  love  as  though  he  were 
preaching  a  sermon,  or  a  man  who  preached  a  sermon  as 
though  he  were  teasing  schoolboys,  or  a  man  who  described 
a  death  as  though  he  were  describing  a  practical  joke,  must 
necessarily  be  either  an  ass  or  a  lunatic."  Just  so.  You 
have  put  it  in  a  nutshell.  You  have  disposed  of  the  problem 
of  style  so  far  as  it  can  be  disposed  of. 

But  what  do  those  people  mean  who  say:  "I  read  such 
and  such  an  author  for  the  beauty  of  his  style  alone"? 
Personally,  I  do  not  clearly  know  what  they  mean  (and 
I  have  never  been  able  to  get  them  to  explain),  unless  they 
mean  that  they  read  for  the  beauty  of  sound  alone.  When 
you  read  a  book  there  are  only  three  things  of  which 
you  may  be  conscious:  (i)  The  significance  of  the  words, 
which  is  inseparably  boimd  up  with  the  thought.  (2)  The 
look  of  the  printed  words  on  the  page — I  do  not  suppose 
that  anybody  reads  any  author  for  the  visual  beauty  of  the 
words  on  the  page.  (3)  The  sound  of  the  words,  either 
actually  uttered  or  imagined  by  the  brain  to  be  uttered. 
Now  it  is  indubitable  that  words  differ  in  beauty  of  sound. 
To  my  mind  one  of  the  most  beautiful  words  in  the  English 


THE  QUESTION  OF  STYLE  51 

language  is  ''pavement."  Enunciate  it,  study  its  sound, 
and  see  what  you  think.  It  is  also  indubitable  that  certain 
combinations  of  words  have  a  more  beautiful  sound  than 
certain  other  combinations.  Thus  Tennyson  held  that  the 
most  beautiful  Une  he  ever  wrote  was: 

"The  mellow  ousel  fluting  in  the  elm." 

Perhaps,  as  sound,  it  was.  Assuredly  it  makes  a  beautiful 
succession  of  sounds  and  recalls  the  bird  sounds  which  it 
is  intended  to  describe.  But  does  it  live  in  the  memory  as 
one  of  the  rare,  great  Tennysonian  Unes  ?  It  does  not.  It 
has  charm,  but  the  charm  is  merely  curious  or  pretty.  A 
whole  poem  composed  of  lines  with  no  better  recommen- 
dation than  that  line  has  would  remain  merely  curious  or 
pretty.  It  would  not  permanently  interest.  It  would  be 
as  insipid  as  a  pretty  woman  who  had  nothing  behind  her 
prettiness.  It  would  not  live.  One  may  remark  in  this 
connection  how  the  merely  verbal  felicities  of  Tennyson 
have  lost  our  esteem.  Who  will  now  proclaim  the  Idylls  oj 
the  King  as  a  masterpiece  ?  Of  the  thousands  of  lines  writ- 
ten by  him  which  please  the  ear,  only  those  survive  of  which 
the  matter  is  charged  with  emotion.  No !  As  regards  the 
man  who  professes  to  read  an  author  "for  his  style  alone," 
I  am  inclined  to  think  either  that  he  will  soon  get  sick  of 
that  author  or  that  he  is  deceiving  himself  and  means  the 
author's  general  temperament — not  the  author's  verbal 
style,  but  a  peculiar  quality  which  runs  through  all  the 
matter  written  by  the  author.  Just  as  one  may  like  a  man 
for  something  which  is  always  coming  out  of  him,  which 
one  cannot  define,  and  which  is  of  the  very  essence  of  the 
man. 

In  judging  the  style  of  an  author,  you  must  employ  the 
same  canons  as  you  use  in  judging  men.    If  you  do  this 


52  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

you  will  not  be  tempted  to  attach  importance  to  trifles  that 
are  negligible.  There  can  be  no  lasting  friendship  without 
respect.  If  an  author's  style  is  such  that  you  cannot  respect 
it,  then  you  may  be  sure  that,  despite  any  present  pleasure 
which  you  may  obtain  from  that  author,  there  is  something 
wrong  with  his  matter,  and  that  the  pleasure  will  soon  cloy. 
You  must  examine  your  sentiments  towards  an  author.  If, 
when  you  have  read  an  author,  you  are  pleased  without 
being  conscious  of  aught  but  his  mellifluousness,  just  con- 
ceive what  your  feelings  would  be  after  spending  a  month's 
hohday  with  a  merely  mellifluous  man.  If  an  author's 
style  has  pleased  you  but  done  nothing  except  make  you 
giggle,  then  reflect  upon  the  ultimate  tediousness  of  the 
man  who  can  do  nothing  but  jest.  On  the  other  hand,  if 
you  are  impressed  by  what  an  author  has  said  to  you,  but 
are  aware  of  verbal  clumsinesses  in  his  work,  you  need 
worry  about  his  **bad  style"  exactly  as  much  and  exactly 
as  little  as  you  would  worry  about  the  manners  of  a  kind- 
hearted,  keen-brained  friend  who  was  dangerous  to  carpets 
with  a  tea-cup  in  his  hand.  The  friend's  antics  in  a  draw- 
ing-room are  somewhat  regrettable,  but  you  would  not  say 
of  him  that  his  manners  were  bad.  Again,  if  an  author's 
style  dazzles  you  instantly  and  blinds  you  to  everything 
except  its  brilliant  self,  ask  your  soul  before  you  begin  to 
admire  his  matter  what  would  be  your  final  opinion  of  a 
man  who  at  the  first  meeting  fired  his  personality  into  you 
like  a  broadside.  Reflect  that,  as  a  rule,  the  people  whom 
you  have  come  to  esteem  communicated  themselves  to  you 
gradually,  that  they  did  not  begin  the  entertainment  with 
fireworks.  In  short,  look  at  literature  as  you  would  look 
at  life,  and  you  cannot  fail  to  perceive  that,  essentially, 
the  style  is  the  man.  Decidedly  you  will  never  assert  that 
you  care  nothing  for  style,  that  your  enjoyment  of  an 


THE  QUESTION  OF  STYLE  53 

author's  matter  is  unaffected  by  his  style.    And  you  will 
never  assert,  either,  that  style  alone  suffices  for  you. 

If  you  are  undecided  upon  a  question  of  style,  whether 
leaning  to  the  favorable  or  to  the  unfavorable,  the  most 
prudent  course  is  to  forget  that  Uterary  style  exists;  for, 
indeed,  as  style  is  understood  by  most  people  who  have  not 
analyzed  their  impressions  under  the  influence  of  literature, 
there  is  no  such  thing  as  Uterary  style.  You  cannot  divide 
literature  into  two  elements  and  say:  This  is  matter  and 
that  style.  Further,  the  significance  and  the  worth  of  liter- 
ature are  to  be  comprehended  and  assessed  in  the  same  way 
as  the  significance  and  the  worth  of  any  other  phenomenon: 
by  the  exercise  of  common  sense.  Common  sense  will  tell 
you  that  nobody,  not  even  a  genius,  can  be  simultaneously 
vulgar  and  distinguished,  or  beautiful  and  ugly,  or  precise 
and  vague,  or  tender  and  harsh.  And  common  sense  will 
therefore  tell  you  that  to  try  to  set  up  vital  contradictions 
between  matter  and  style  is  absurd.  When  there  is  a  super- 
ficial contradiction,  one  of  the  two  mutually  contradicting 
qualities  is  of  far  less  importance  than  the  other.  If  you 
refer  literature  to  the  standards  of  life,  common  sense  will 
at  once  decide  which  quaUty  should  count  heaviest  in  your 
esteem.  You  will  be  in  no  danger  of  weighing  a  mere 
maladroitness  of  manner  against  a  fine  trait  of  character, 
or  of  letting  a  graceful  deportment  blind  you  to  a  funda- 
mental vacuity.  When  in  doubt,  ignore  style,  and  think 
of  the  matter  as  you  would  think  of  an  individual. 


PART  II 

III 

LIFE  AT  OXFORD  1 

JOHN  CORBIN 
I 

One  of  the  familiar  sights  at  Oxford  is  the  American 
traveller  who  stops  over  on  his  way  from  Liverpool  to 
London,  and,  wandering  up  among  the  walls  of  the  twenty 
colleges  from  the  Great  Western  Station,  asks  the  first 
undergraduate  he  meets  which  building  is  the  university. 
When  an  Oxford  man  is  first  asked  this,  he  is  pretty  sure 
to  answer  that  there  isn't  any  university;  but  as  the  answer 
is  taken  as  a  rudeness,  he  soon  finds  it  more  agreeable  to 
direct  inquirers  to  one  of  the  three  or  four  single  buildings, 
scattered  hither  and  yon  among  the  ubiquitous  colleges, 
in  which  the  few  functions  of  the  university  are  performed. 

To  the  undergraduate  the  university  is  an  abstract  in- 
stitution that  at  most  examines  him  two  or  three  times, 
"ploughs"  him,  or  graduates  him.  He  becomes  a  member 
of  it  by  being  admitted  into  one  of  the  colleges.  To  be  sure, 
he  matriculates  also  as  a  student  of  the  university;  but  the 
ceremony  is  important  mainly  as  a  survival  from  the  historic 
past,  and  is  memorable  to  him  perhaps  because  it  takes 

*This  article,  taken  partly  from  An  American  at  Oxford  and  partly  from 
an  essay  in  Harper's  Weekly,  is  here  reprinted  in  this  special  form  through 
the  courtesy  of  John  Corbin,  The  Houghton  Mifflin  Company,  and  Messrs. 
Harper  and  Brothers. 

54 


LIFE  AT  OXFORD  55 

place  beneath  the  beautiful  mediaeval  roof  of  the  Divinity 
School;  perhaps  because  he  receives  from  the  vice-chancel- 
lor a  copy  of  the  university  statutes,  written  in  mediaeval 
Latin,  which  it  is  to  be  his  chief  deUght  to  break.  Except 
when  he  is  in  for  "schools,"  as  the  examinations  are  called, 
the  imiversity  fades  beyond  his  horizon.  If  he  says  he  is 
*' reading"  at  Oxford,  he  has  the  city  in  mind.  He  is  more 
likely  to  describe  himself  as  "up  at"  Magdalen,  Balliol, 
or  elsewhere.  This  EngUsh  idea  that  a  university  is  a  mere 
multiplication  of  colleges  is  so  firmly  fixed  that  the  very 
word  is  defined  as  "a  collection  of  institutions  of  learning  at 
a  common  centre."  In  the  daily  life  of  the  undergraduate, 
in  his  religious  observances,  and  in  regulating  his  studies, 
the  college  is  supreme. 

To  an  American  the  EngUsh  college  is  not  at  first  sight 
a  wholly  pleasing  object.  It  has  walls  that  one  would  take 
to  be  insurmountable  if  they  were  not  crowned  with  shards 
of  bottles  mortared  into  the  coping;  and  it  has  gates  that 
seem  capable  of  resisting  a  siege  imtil  one  notices  that  they 
are  reinforced  by  a  cheval  defrise,  or  a  row  of  bent  spikes 
like  those  that  keep  the  bears  in  their  dens  at  the  Zoo. 
Like  so  many  English  institutions,  its  outward  and  visible 
signs  belong  to  the  manners  of  forgotten  ages,  even  while 
it  is  charged  with  a  vigorous  and  very  modern  life.  A 
closer  view  of  it,  I  hope,  will  show  that  in  spite  of  the  barna- 
cles of  the  past  that  cling  to  it — and  in  some  measure,  too, 
because  of  them — it  is  the  expression  of  a  very  high  ideal 
of  undergraduate  convenience  and  freedom. 

The  virtue  of  the  college  hes  in  the  fact  that  it  gives  every 
man  a  suitable  home,  and  provides  that  he  come  under  the 
best  influences  of  the  university  with  the  least  possible 
effort  and  delay.  When  a  freshman  arrives  at  the  college 
the  mediaeval  gate  is  unbarred  by  a  very  modem  porter, 


56  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

who  lifts  boxes  and  bags  from  the  hansom  in  the  most 
obHging  manner;  and  he  is  presently  shown  to  his  cloisteral 
chambers  by  a  friendly  and  urbane  butler  or  steward.  To 
accommodate  the  newcomers  in  the  more  populous  colleges 
a  measure  is  resorted  to  that  shocks  all  American  ideas 
of  academic  propriety.  Enough  seniors — fourth  and  third 
year  men  are  turned  out  of  college  to  make  room  for  the 
freshmen.  The  assumption  is  that  these  upper  classmen 
have  had  every  opportunity  to  profit  by  the  Ufe  of  the 
college  and  are  prepared  to  flock  by  themselves  in  the 
town.  Little  communities  of  four  or  five  fellows  who  have 
proved  congenial  Uve  together  in  "diggings" — that  is, 
in  some  townsman's  house  hard  by  the  college  gate.  This 
arrangement  makes  possible  closer  and  more  intimate  re- 
lationship among  them  than  would  otherwise  be  likely; 
and,  by  insuring  them  against  the  distractions  of  life  in 
the  college,  it  gives  them  a  solid  year  for  study  before  the 
final  examination.  It  cannot  be  said  that  they  leave  col- 
lege without  regret,  but  I  never  heard  a  word  of  complaint, 
and  it  is  tacitly  admitted  that,  on  the  whole,  they  profit  by 
the  arrangement. 

When  the  freshman  has  been  shown  to  his  room  he  falls 
to  the  care  of  the  "scout" — a  dignitary  in  the  employ  of 
the  college  who  stands  in  somewhat  less  than  the  place  of 
a  parent  and  more  than  that  of  a  servant  to  some  half  a 
dozen  fellows  whose  rooms  are  adjacent.  The  more  sub- 
stantial furnishings  in  the  rooms  are  usually  permanent, 
belonging  to  the  college;  each  successive  occupant  is 
charged  for  interest  on  the  investment  and  for  depreciation 
by  wear.  Thus  the  furniture  is  far  more  comfortable  than 
in  an  American  college  and  costs  the  occupant  less.  Bed 
and  table  linen,  cutlery,  and  a  few  of  the  more  personal 
furnishings  the  student  brings  himself.    If  one  neglects  to 


LIFE  AT  OXFORD  57 

bring  them,  however,  as,  I  confess,  I  did,  through  ignorance, 
mine  host,  the  scout,  clandestinely  levies  on  the  man  above 
for  sheets,  on  the  man  below  for  knives  and  forks,  and  on 
the  man  across  the  way  for  table-linen.  And  there  is  no 
call  for  either  shame  on  the  one  part  or  resentment  on  the 
other,  for  is  not  the  scout  the  representative  of  the  hospi- 
tality of  the  college?  "When  you  have  time,  sir,"  the 
scout  says  kindly,  "you  will  order  your  own  linen  and 
cutlery."  How  high  a  state  of  civilization  such  an  arrange- 
ment implies  can  be  appreciated  only  by  those  who  have 
turned  up  friendless  in  an  American  university. 

As  soon  as  the  freshman  is  settled  in  his  rooms,  and  some- 
times even  before,  his  tutor  meets  him  and  arranges  for  a 
formal  presentation  to  the  dean  and  master.  All  three  are 
apt  to  show  their  interest  in  a  freshman  by  advising  him  as 
to  trying  for  the  athletic  teams,  joining  the  college  clubs 
and  societies,  and,  in  a  word,  as  to  all  the  concerns  of  under- 
graduate life  except  his  studies — these  come  later.  If  a 
man  has  any  particular  gift,  athletic  or  otherwise,  the  tutor 
introduces  him  to  the  upper  classman  he  should  know  or, 
when  this  is  not  feasible,  gives  a  word  to  the  upper  class- 
men, who  take  the  matter  into  their  own  hands.  If  a  fellow 
has  no  especial  gift,  the  tutor  is  quite  as  sure  to  say  the 
proper  word  to  the  fellows  who  have  most  talent  for  draw- 
ing out  newcomers. 

In  the  first  weeks  of  a  freshman's  residence  he  finds  sun- 
dry pasteboards  tucked  beneath  his  door — the  upper  class- 
man's call  is  seldom  more  than  the  formal  dropping  of  a 
card.  The  freshman  is  expected  to  return  these  calls  at 
once  and  is  debarred  by  a  happy  custom  from  leaving  his 
card  in  return.  He  goes  again  and  again  until  he  finds  his 
upper  classman.  By  direct  introduction  from  the  tutor  or 
by  this  formality  of  calling,  the  freshman  soon  meets  half 


58  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

a  dozen  upper  classmen,  generally  second-year  men,  and 
in  due  time  he  receives  little  notes  like  this: 

Dear  Smith, — Come  to  my  rooms  to  breakfast,  if  you 
can,  with  Mr.  Brown  and  me  on  Wednesday  at  8.30. 

Yours  sincerely, 

A.  Robinson. 

At  table,  the  freshman  finds  other  freshmen,  whose  in- 
terests are  presumably  similar  to  his  own. 

No  one  supposes  for  a  moment  that  all  this  is  done  out 
of  simple  human  kindness.  The  freshman  breakfast  is  a 
conventional  institution  for  gathering  together  the  unlicked 
cubs,  so  that  the  influences  of  the  college  can  take  hold  of 
them.  The  reputation  of  the  college  in  general  demands 
that  it  keep  up  a  name  for  hospitality,  and  in  particular 
the  clubs  and  athletic  teams  find  it  of  advantage  to  get  the 
run  of  all  available  new  material.  As  a  result  of  this  ma- 
chinery for  initiating  newcomers,  a  man  usually  ceases  to  be 
a  freshman  after  a  single  term — two  months — of  residence, 
and  it  is  always  assumed  that  he  does. 

If  one's  idiosyncrasies  do  not  yield  to  the  kindlier  treat- 
ment he  is  liable  to  be  "ragged,"  or,  as  we  should  say,  hazed. 
The  more  I  learned  of  Oxford  motives,  the  less  anxious  I 
was  to  censure  the  system  of  ragging.  In  an  article  I  wrote, 
after  only  a  few  months'  stay,  I  spoke  of  it  as  boyish  and 
undignified,  and  most  Americans,  I  feel  sure,  would  hold 
up  the  hand  of  pubHc  horror.  Yet  I  am  not  now  inclined 
to  be  thankful  that  we  are  not  as  they.  Ragging  is  doubtless 
a  survival  of  the  excellently  efficient  system  of  discipline 
in  the  public  schools  where  the  older  boys  have  charge  of 
the  manners  and  morals  of  the  younger,  if  indeed  it  is  not, 
like  public-school  discipline,  an  inheritance  from  the  Mid- 


LIFE  AT  OXFORD  59 

die  Ages.  In  the  schools,  to  be  sure,  the  sixth  form  take 
their  duties  with  great  sobriety  of  conscience,  which  is 
scarcely  the  case  in  the  college;  but  the  difference  of  spirit 
in  the  colleges  is  perhaps  justifiable. 

I  have  not  come  to  this  trust  in  the  college  system  with- 
out experience.  I  have  also  sounded  the  undergraduates 
as  to  whether  they  would  find  use  for  a  greater  liberty. 
I  found  that  the  fellows  were  not  only  content  with  their 
lot,  but  would  resent  any  loosening  of  the  restrictions.  To 
give  them  the  liberty  of  London  at  night,  or  even  of  Ox- 
ford, they  argued,  would  tend  to  break  up  the  college  as  a 
social  organization  and  to  weaken  it  athletically,  for  at 
Oxford  they  understand  what  we  sometimes  do  not — that 
a  successful  cultivation  of  sports  goes  hand  in  hand  with 
universal  good  comradeship  and  mutual  loyalty. 

The  only  question  remaining  was  of  the  actual  moral 
results  of  the  semicloisteral  Ufe.  As  for  drinking,  in  spite 
of  the  fact  that  wine  is  sold  to  the  students  at  any  and  all 
times  by  the  college,  and  in  any  and  all  quantities,  there 
seemed  to  be  less  excessive  indulgence  than,  for  instance,  at 
Harvard  or  at  Yale.  And  the  fact  that  what  there  was 
took  place  for  the  most  part  within  the  college  walls  was 
certainly  most  fortunate.  When  fellows  are  turned  loose 
for  their  jubilations  amid  the  florid  vices  of  a  great  city, 
as  is  often  the  case  with  us,  the  consequences  to  their 
general  moraUty  are  sometimes  the  most  hideous.  The 
lives  of  the  men  in  English  colleges  are  clean,  incredibly 
clean.  The  few  men  to  whom  immorahty  seems  inevitable 
— and  such  are  to  be  found  in  all  communities — have  re- 
course to  London.  But  as  their  expeditions  take  place  in 
daylight  and  cold  blood,  and  are,  except  at  a  great  risk, 
cut  short  when  the  last  evening  train  leaves  Paddington 
shortly  after  dinner,  it  is  not  possible  to  carry  them  off 


6o  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

with  that  dazzling  air  of  the  man  of  the  world  that  in 
America  lures  so  many  silly  freshmen  into  dissipations 
for  which  they  have  no  natural  inclination. 

It  will  be  seen  that  the  EngHsh  college  affords  those 
peculiar  advantages  of  community  life — eating,  sleeping, 
work,  and  play — that  with  us  are  confined  to  fraternities 
and  clubs,  and  where  these  are  in  their  very  nature  exclusive 
the  college  is  consciously  and  effectively  inclusive.  The 
very  fact  of  being  at  Oxford  insures  one  a  well-ordered  life 
and  ample  opportunity  for  making  friends.  Society  life, 
as  we  know  it,  is  obviously  superfluous.  The  social  organ- 
izations in  a  college  are,  for  the  most  part,  for  the  promotion 
of  recognized  undergraduate  activities — athletics,  debat- 
ing, etc. — and  are  open  to  all  who  are  qualified  for  mem- 
bership. Each  college,  to  be  sure,  is  likely  to  have  its  wine 
club,  membership  in  which  is  a  purely  social  distinction; 
and  in  the  university,  as  a  whole,  there  are,  as  in  American 
universities,  many  exclusive  organizations  most  pleasant 
and  useful  to  belong  to.  But  their  evil  effects  are  annulled 
by  the  fact  that  the  life  in  the  colleges  is  so  admirably 
adapted  to  supplying  all  normal  social  wants.  The  col- 
lege is  a  man's  home,  while  the  university  is,  like  the  city 
he  lives  in,  full  of  interests  and  activities  which  it  is  pleasant 
but  not  necessary  to  form  a  part  of.  And  here  is  the  point 
of  chief  moment.  By  the  very  conditions  of  residence  in 
colleges  the  members  of  the  exclusive  societies  come  into 
daily  contact,  each  with  the  life  of  the  college  he  belongs 
to,  and  the  esprit  de  corps  of  the  college  is  so  strong  that 
they  seldom  or  never  cease  to  be  loyal  to  its  interests.  No 
matter  how  distinguished  a  'varsity  oarsman  may  be,  he 
has  the  keenest  interest  in  the  boating  reputation  of  his 
college,  as  the  annual  bumping  races  testify.  And  socially 
it  is  the  same.    The  news  of  the  imiversity  at  large  is  first 


LIFE  AT  OXFORD  6i 

reported  and  discussed  over  afternoon  tea  at  the  great 
university  society,  Vincent's;  by  dinner  time  it  has  been 
brought  into  the  dining-halls  of  all  the  great  colleges.  In 
an  incredibly  short  time  all  undergraduate  news  and  the 
judgments  upon  it  of  the  men  best  qualified  to  judge  ramify 
the  college,  and  men  who  seldom  stir  beyond  the  college 
walls  are  brought  closely  in  touch  with  the  innermost  spirit 
of  the  university  life.  Here  again  the  compact  communi- 
ties within  those  college  walls — so  terrible  to  Americans — 
make  possible  a  freedom  of  interplay  of  all  social  forces 
unknown  at  Harvard  or  Yale.  The  real  Union  of  Oxford, 
social,  athletic,  and  intellectual,  exists  quite  apart  from 
the  so-called  Oxford  Union;  it  results  from  the  nice  ad- 
justment between  the  residential  life  of  the  colleges  and 
the  social  life  of  the  university.  Thus  Oxford  and  Cam- 
bridge combine  the  intellectual  advantages  of  a  large  uni- 
versity with  the  social  advantages  possible  in  a  small 
college. 

n 

When  a  freshman  is  once  established  in  college,  his  life 
falls  into  a  pleasantly  varied  routine.  The  day  is  ushered 
in  by  the  scout,  who  bustles  into  the  bedroom,  throws  aside 
the  curtain,  pours  out  the  bath,  and  shouts,  "Half  past 
seven,  sir,"  in  a  tone  that  makes  it  impossible  to  forget 
that  chapel — or  if  one  chooses,  roll-call — comes  at  eight. 
Unless  one  keeps  his  six  chapels  or  ''rollers"  a  week,  he 
is  promptly  "hauled"  before  the  dean,  who  perhaps  "gates" 
him.  To  be  gated  is  to  be  forbidden  to  pass  the  college  gate 
after  dark,  and  fined  a  shilling  for  each  night  of  confine- 
ment. To  an  American  all  this  brings  recollections  of  the 
paternal  roof,  where  tardiness  at  breakfast  meant,  perhaps, 
the  loss  of  dessert  and  bedtime  an  hour  earlier.    I  remember 


62      COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

once,  when  out  of  training,  deliberately  cutting  chapel  to 
see  with  what  mien  the  good  dean  performed  his  nursery 
duties.  His  calm  was  unruffled,  his  dignity  unsullied.  I 
soon  came  to  find  that  the  rules  about  rising  were  bowed 
to  and  indeed  respected  by  all  concerned,  even  while  they 
were  broken.  They  are  distinctly  more  lax  than  those  the 
fellows  have  been  accustomed  to  in  the  public  schools,  and 
they  are  conceded  to  be  for  the  best  welfare  of  the  college. 

Breakfast  comes  soon  after  chapel,  or  roll-call.  If  a  man 
has  "kept  a  dirty  roller,"  that  is,  has  reported  in  pajamas, 
ulster,  and  boots,  and  has  turned  in  again,  the  scout  puts 
the  breakfast  before  the  fire  on  a  trestle  built  of  shovel, 
poker,  and  tongs,  where  it  remains  edible  imtil  noon.  If 
a  man  has  a  breakfast  party  on,  the  scout  makes  sure  that 
he  is  stirring  in  season,  and,  hurrying  through  the  other 
rooms  on  the  staircase,  is  presently  on  hand  for  as  long  as 
he  may  be  wanted.  The  usual  Oxford  breakfast  is  a  single 
course,  which  not  infrequently  consists  of  some  one  of  the 
excellent  English  pork  products  with  an  egg  or  kidneys. 
There  may  be  two  courses,  in  which  case  the  first  is  of 
the  no  less  excellent  fresh  fish.  There  are  no  vegetables. 
The  breakfast  is  ended  with  toast  and  jam  or  marmalade. 
When  one  has  fellows  in  to  breakfast — and  the  Oxford 
custom  of  rooming  alone  instead  of  chumming  makes  such 
hospitality  frequent — his  usual  meal  is  increased  by  a  course, 
say,  of  chicken.  In  any  case  it  leads  to  a  morning  cigarette, 
for  tobacco  aids  digestion  and  helps  fill  the  hour  or  so  after 
meals  which  an  Englishman  gives  to  relaxation. 

At  ten  o'clock  the  breakfast  may  be  interrupted  for  a 
moment  by  the  exit  of  some  one  bent  on  attending  a  lecture, 
though  one  apologizes  for  such  an  act  as  if  it  were  scarcely 
good  form.  An  appointment  with  one's  tutor  is  a  more 
legitimate  excuse  for  leaving;   but  even  this  is  always  an 


LIFE  AT  OXFORD  63 

occasion  for  an  apology,  in  behalf  of  the  tutor,  of  course, 
for  one  is  certainly  not  himself  responsible.  If  a  quorum 
is  left,  they  manage  to  sit  comfortably  by  the  fire,  smoking 
and  chatting  in  spite  of  lectures  and  tutors,  until  by  mutual 
consent  they  scatter  to  glance  at  the  Times  and  the 
Sportsman  in  the  common-room,  or  even  to  get  in  a  bit 
of  reading. 

Luncheon  often  consists  of  bread  and  cheese  and  jam 
from  the  buttery,  with  perhaps  a  half -pint  of  bitter  beer; 
but  it  may,  like  the  breakfast,  come  from  the  college  kitchen. 
In  any  case  it  is  very  light,  for  almost  immediately  after 
it  everybody  scatters  to  field  and  track  and  river  for  the 
exercise  that  the  English  climate  makes  necessary  and  the 
sport  that  the  English  temperament  demands. 

By  four  o'clock  every  one  is  back  in  college  tubbed  and 
dressed  for  tea,  which  a  man  serves  himself  in  his  rooms  to 
as  many  fellows  as  he  has  been  able  to  gather  in  on  field 
or  river.  If  he  is  eager  to  hear  of  the  games  he  has  not  been 
able  to  witness,  he  goes  to  the  junior  common-room  or  to 
his  club,  where  he  is  sure  to  find  a  dozen  or  so  of  kindred 
spirits  representing  every  sport  of  importance.  In  this  way 
he  hears  the  minutest  details  of  the  games  of  the  day  from 
the  players  themselves;  and  before  nightfall — such  is  the 
influence  of  tea — those  bits  of  gossip  which  in  America  are 
known  chiefly  among  members  of  a  team  have  ramified 
the  college.  Thus  the  function  of  the  "bleachers"  on  an 
American  field  is  performed  with  a  vengeance  by  the  easy 
chairs  before  a  common-room  fire;  and  a  man  had  better 
be  kicked  off  the  team  by  an  American  captain  than  have 
his  shortcomings  served  up  with  common-room  tea. 

The  two  hours  between  tea  and  dinner  may  be,  and 
usually  are,  spent  in  reading. 

At  seven  o'clock  the  college  bell  rings,  and  in  two  min- 


64  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

utes  the  fellows  have  thrown  on  their  gowns  and  are  seated 
at  table,  where  the  scouts  are  in  readiness  to  serve  them. 
As  a  rule  a  man  may  sit  wherever  he  chooses;  this  is  one 
of  the  admirable  arrangements  for  breaking  up  such  cUques 
as  inevitably  form  in  a  college.  But  in  point  of  fact  a  man 
usually  ends  by  sitting  in  some  certain  quarter  of  the  hall, 
where  from  day  to  day  he  finds  much  the  same  set  of  fel- 
lows. Thus  all  the  advantages  of  friendly  intercourse  are 
attained  without  any  real  exclusiveness.  This  may  seem 
a  small  point;  but  an  hour  a  day  becomes  an  item  in  four 
years,  especially  if  it  is  the  hour  when  men  arc  most  dis- 
posed to  be  companionable. 

The  English  college  hall  is  a  miniature  of  Memorial  Hall 
at  Harvard,  of  which  it  is  the  prototype.  It  has  the  same 
sombrely  beautiful  roof,  the  same  richness  of  stained  glass. 
It  has  also  the  same  memorable  and  impressive  canvases, 
though  the  worthies  they  portray  are  likely  to  be  the  princes 
and  prelates  of  Holbein  instead  of  the  soldiers,  merchants, 
and  divines  of  Copley  and  Gilbert  Stuart.  The  tables  are 
of  antique  oak,  with  the  shadow  of  centuries  in  its  grain, 
and  the  college  plate  bears  the  names  and  date  of  the  Res- 
toration. To  an  American  the  mugs  he  drinks  his  beer 
from  seem  old  enough,  but  the  Englishman  finds  them  ag- 
gressively new.  They  are  not,  however,  without  endearing 
associations,  for  the  mugs  that  preceded  them  were  last 
used  to  drink  a  health  to  King  Charles,  and  were  then 
stamped  into  coin  to  buy  food  and  drink  for  his  soldiers. 
The  one  or  two  colleges  that,  for  Puritan  principles  or 
thrift,  or  both,  refused  to  give  up  their  old  plate  are  not 
overproud  of  showing  it. 

Across  the  end  of  the  hall  is  a  platform  for  high  table, 
at  which  the  dons  assemble  as  soon  as  the  undergraduates 
are  well  seated.    On  Sunday  night  they  come  out  in  full 


LIFE  AT  OXFORD  65 

force,  and  from  the  time  the  first  one  enters  until  the  last 
is  seated,  the  undergraduates  rattle  and  bang  the  tables, 
until  it  seems  as  if  the  glass  must  splinter.  When,  as  often 
happens,  a  distinguished  graduate  comes  up — the  speaker 
of  the  Commons  to  Balliol,  or  the  prime  minister  to  Christ 
Church — the  enthusiasm  has  usually  to  be  stopped  by  a 
gesture  from  the  master  or  the  dean. 

The  dons  at  high  table,  like  the  British  peers,  mingle 
judicial  with  legislative  functions.  All  disputes  about 
sconces  are  referred  to  them,  and  their  decrees  are  absolute. 
A  sconce  is  a  penalty  for  a  breach  of  good  manners  at  table, 
and  is  an  institution  that  can  be  traced  far  back  into  the 
Middle  Ages.  The  offenses  that  are  sconcible  may  be  sum- 
marized as  punning,  swearing,  talking  shop,  and  coming  to 
hall  after  high  table  is  in  session.  Take,  for  instance,  the 
case  of  a  certain  oarsman  who  found  the  dinner  forms  rather 
too  rigid  after  his  first  day  on  sHding  seats.  By  way  of  com- 
forting himself,  he  remarked  that  the  Lord  giveth  and  the 
Lord  taketh  away.  Who  is  to  decide  whether  he  is  guilty 
of  profanity?  The  master,  of  course,  and  his  assembled 
court  of  dons.  The  remark  and  the  attendant  circum- 
stances are  written  on  the  back  of  an  order-slip  by  the 
senior  scholar  present,  and  a  scout  is  despatched  with  it. 
Imagine,  then,  the  master  presenting  this  question  to  the 
dons :  Is  it  profanity  to  refer  by  means  of  a  quotation  from 
Scripture  to  the  cuticle  one  loses  in  a  college  boat?  Sup- 
pose the  dons  decree  that  it  is.  The  culprit  has  the  alter- 
native of  paying  a  shilling  to  the  college  library  or  ordering 
a  tun  of  bitter  beer.  If  he  decides  for  beer,  a  second  alter- 
native confronts  him:  he  may  drink  it  down  in  one  un- 
interrupted draft,  or  he  may  kiss  the  cup  and  send  it  circling 
the  table.  If  he  tries  to  floor  the  sconce  and  fails,  he  has 
to  order  more  beer  for  the  table;   but  if  he  succeeds,  the 


66  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

man  who  sconced  him  has  to  pay  the  shot  and  order  a 
second  tun  for  the  table. 

In  the  evening,  when  the  season  permits,  the  fellows  sit 
out-of-doors  after  dinner,  smoking  and  playing  bowls. 
There  is  no  place  in  which  the  spring  comes  more  sweetly 
than  in  an  Oxford  garden.  The  high  walls  are  at  once  a 
trap  for  the  first  warm  rays  of  the  sun  and  a  barrier  against 
the  winds  of  March.  The  daffodils  and  crocuses  spring  up 
with  joy  as  the  gardener  bids;  and  the  apple  and  cherry 
trees  coddle  against  the  warm  north  walls,  spreading  out 
their  early  buds  gratefully  to  the  mild  English  sim.  For 
long,  quiet  hours  after  dinner  they  flaunt  their  beauty  to 
the  fellows  smoking  and  breathe  their  sweetness  to  the 
fellows  playing  bowls.  "No  man,"  exclaims  the  American 
visitor,  ''could  live  four  years  in  these  gardens  of  delight 
and  not  be  made  gentler  and  nobler!"  Perhaps!  though 
not  altogether  in  the  way  the  visitor  imagines.  When  the 
flush  of  summer  is  on,  the  loiterers  loll  on  the  lawn  full 
length;  and  as  they  watch  the  insects  crawl  among  the 
grass  they  make  bets  on  them,  just  as  the  gravest  and  most 
reverend  seniors  have  been  known  to  do  in  America. 

In  the  windows  overlooking  the  quadrangle  are  boxes  of 
brilliant  flowers,  above  which  the  smoke  of  a  pipe  comes 
curling  out.  At  Harvard  some  fellows  have  geraniums  in 
their  windows,  but  only  the  very  rich;  and  when  they  began 
the  custom  an  ancient  graduate  wrote  one  of  those  communi- 
cations to  the  Crimson,  saying  that  if  men  put  unmanly 
boxes  of  flowers  in  the  window,  how  can  they  expect  to  beat 
Yale?  Flower-boxes,  no  sand.  At  Oxford  they  manage 
things  so  that  anybody  may  have  flower-boxes;  and  their 
associations  are  by  no  means  unmanly.  This  is  the  way 
they  do  it.  In  the  early  summer  a  gardener's  wagon  from 
the  country  draws  up  by  the  college  gate,  and  the  driver 


LIFE  AT  OXFORD  67 

cries :  "Flowers !  Flowers  for  a  pair  of  old  bags,  sir."  Bags 
is  of  course  the  fitting  term  for  English  trousers — which 
don't  fit;  and  I  should  like  to  inform  that  ancient  graduate 
that  the  window-boxes  of  Oxford  suggest  the  very  badge  of 
manhood. 

As  long  as  the  English  twilight  lingers,  the  men  will  sit 
and  talk  and  sing  to  the  mandolin;  and  I  have  heard  of 
fellows  sitting  and  talking  all  night,  not  turning  in  until  the 
porter  appeared  to  take  their  names  at  roll-call.  On  the 
eve  of  May-day  it  is  quite  the  custom  to  sit  out,  for  at  dawn 
one  may  go  to  see  the  pretty  ceremony  of  heralding  the 
May  on  Magdalen  Tower.  The  Magdalen  choir-boys — 
the  sweetest  songsters  in  all  Oxford — mount  to  the  top  of 
that  most  beautiful  of  Gothic  towers,  and,  standing  among 
the  pinnacles — ^pinnacles  afire  with  the  spirituality  of  the 
Middle  Ages,  that  warms  all  the  senses  with  purity  and 
beauty — those  boys,  I  say,  on  that  tower  and  among  those 
pinnacles,  open  their  mouths  and  sing  a  Latin  song  to  greet 
the  May.  Meantime,  the  fellows  who  have  come  out  to 
listen  in  the  street  below  make  catcalls  and  blow  fish-horns. 
The  song  above  is  the  survival  of  a  Romish,  perhaps  a 
Druidical,  custom;  the  racket  below  is  the  survival  of  a 
Puritan  protest.  That  is  Oxford  in  symbol !  Its  dignity 
and  mellowness  are  not  so  much  a  matter  of  flowering  gar- 
dens and  crumbling  walls  as  of  the  traditions  of  the  cen- 
turies in  which  the  whole  life  of  the  place  has  deep  sources; 
and  the  noblest  of  its  institutions  are  fringed  with  survivals 
that  run  riot  in  the  grotesque. 

If  a  man  intends  to  spend  the  evening  out  of  college,  he 
has  to  make  a  dash  before  nine  o'clock;  for  love  or  for 
money  the  porter  may  not  let  an  inmate  out  after  nine. 
One  man  I  knew  was  able  to  escape  by  guile.  He  had  a 
brother  in  Trinity  whom  he  very  much  resembled,  and 


68  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

whenever  he  wanted  to  go  out,  he  would  tilt  his  mortar- 
board forward,  wrap  his  gown  high  about  his  neck,  as  it 
is  usually  worn  of  an  evening,  and  bidding  the  porter  a 
polite  good  night,  say:  "Charge  me  to  my  brother,  Han- 
cock, if  you  please."  The  charge  is  the  inconsiderable  sum 
of  one  penny,  and  is  the  penalty  of  having  a  late  guest. 
Having  profited  by  my  experience  with  the  similar  charge 
for  keeping  my  name  on  the  college  books,  I  never  asked 
its  why  and  wherefore.  Both  are  no  doubt  survivals  of 
some  mediaeval  custom,  the  authority  of  which  no  college 
employee — or  don,  for  the  matter  of  that — would  question. 
Such  matters  interest  the  Oxford  man  quite  as  httle  as  the 
question  how  he  comes  by  a  tonsil  or  a  vermiform  appendix. 
They  are  there,  and  he  makes  the  best  of  them. 

If  a  fellow  leaves  college  for  an  evening,  it  is  for  a  fore- 
gathering at  some  other  college,  or  to  go  to  the  theatre. 
As  a  rule  he  wears  a  cloth  cap.  A  "billycock"  or  "bowler," 
as  the  pot  hat  is  called,  is  as  thoroughly  frowned  on  now  in 
English  colleges  as  it  was  with  us  a  dozen  years  ago.  As 
for  the  mortarboard  and  gown,  undergraduate  opinion 
rather  requires  that  they  be  left  behind.  This  is  largely, 
no  doubt,  because  they  are  required  by  law  to  be  worn. 
So  far  as  the  undergraduates  are  concerned,  every  operative 
statute  of  the  university,  with  the  exception  of  those  re- 
lating to  matriculation  and  graduation,  refers  to  conduct 
in  the  streets  after  nightfall,  and  almost  without  exception 
they  are  honored  in  the  breach.  This  is  out  of  disregard 
for  the  vice-chancellor  of  the  imiversity,  who  is  familiarly 
called  the  vice,  because  he  serves  as  a  warning  to  others 
for  the  practise  of  virtue.  The  vice  makes  his  power  felt 
in  characteristically  dark  and  tortuous  ways.  His  factors 
are  two  proctors,  college  dons  in  daytime,  but  skulkers 
after  nightfall,  each  of  whom  has  his  bulldogs,  that  is, 


LIFE  AT  OXFORD  69 

scouts  employed  literally  to  spy  upon  the  students.  If  these 
catch  you  without  cap  or  gown,  they  cause  you  to  be  proc- 
torized  or  *'progged,"  as  it  is  called,  which  involves  a  mat- 
ter of  five  shillings  or  so.  As  a  rule  there  is  httle  danger  of 
progging,  but  my  first  term  fell  in  evil  days.  For  some 
reason  or  other  the  chest  of  the  university  showed  a  deficit 
of  sundry  pounds,  shilhngs,  and  pence;  and  as  it  had  long 
ceased  to  need  or  receive  regular  bequests — the  finance  of 
the  institution  being  in  the  hands  of  the  colleges — a  crisis 
was  at  hand.  A  more  serious  problem  had  doubtless  never 
arisen  since  the  great  question  was  solved  of  keeping  under- 
graduates' names  on  the  books.  The  expedient  of  the  vice- 
chancellor  was  to  summon  the  proctors,  and  bid  them 
charge  their  bulldogs  to  prog  all  freshmen  caught  at  night 
without  cap  and  gown.  The  deficit  in  the  university  chest 
was  made  up  at  five  shillings  a  head. 

One  of  the  vice-chancellor's  rules  is  that  no  under- 
graduate shall  enter  an  Oxford  "pub."  Now  the  only 
restaurant  in  town.  Queen's,  is  run  in  conjunction  with  a 
pub,  and  was  once  the  favorite  resort  of  all  who  were  bent 
on  breaking  the  monotony  of  an  English  Sunday.  The  vice- 
chancellor  resolved  to  destroy  this  den  of  Sabbath-breaking, 
and  the  undergraduates  resolved  no  less  firmly  to  defend 
their  stronghold.  The  result  was  a  hand-to-hand  fight  with 
the  bulldogs,  which  ended  so  triumphantly  for  the  under- 
graduates that  a  dozen  or  more  of  them  were  sent  down. 
In  the  articles  of  the  peace  that  followed,  it  was  stipulated, 
I  was  told,  that  so  long  as  the  restaurant  was  closed  Sunday 
afternoons  and  nights,  it  should  never  suffer  from  the  visit 
of  proctor  or  bulldog.  As  a  result.  Queen's  is  a  great  scene 
of  undergraduate  foregatherings.  The  dinners  are  good 
enough  and  reasonably  cheap;  and  as  most  excellent  cham- 
pagne is  to  be  had  at  twelve  shillings  the  bottle,  the  diners 


70  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

are  not  unlikely  to  get  back  to  college  a  trifle  buffy,  in  the 
Oxford  phrase. 

By  an  interesting  survival  of  mediaeval  custom,  the  vice- 
chancellor  has  supreme  power  over  the  morals  of  the  town, 
and  any  citizen  who  transgresses  his  laws  is  visited  with 
summary  punishment.  For  a  tradesman  or  publican  to 
assist  in  breaking  university  rules  means  outlawry  and  ruin, 
and  for  certain  offenses  a  citizen  may  be  punished  by  im- 
prisonment. Over  the  Oxford  theatre  the  vice-chancellor's 
power  is  absolute.  Li  my  time  he  was  much  more  solici- 
tous that  the  undergraduate  be  kept  from  knowledge  of  the 
omnipresent  woman  with  a  past  than  that  dramatic  art 
should  flourish,  and  forbade  the  town  more  than  one 
excellent  play  of  the  modern  school  of  comedy  that  had 
been  seen  and  discussed  in  London  by  the  younger  sisters 
of  the  undergraduates.  The  woman  with  a  present  is 
virtually  absent. 

Time  was  when  no  Oxford  play  was  quite  successful  im- 
less  the  undergraduates  assisted  at  its  first  night,  though 
in  a  way  very  different  from  that  which  the  term  denotes 
in  France.  The  assistance  was  of  the  kind  so  generously 
rendered  in  New  York  and  Boston  on  the  evening  of  an 
athletic  contest.  Even  to-day,  just  for  tradition's  sake, 
the  undergraduates  sometimes  make  a  row.  A  lot  of  B. 
N.  C.  men,  as  the  clanny  sons  of  Brazenose  College  call 
themselves,  may  insist  that  an  opera  stop  while  the  troupe 
listen  to  one  of  their  own  excellent  vocal  performances; 
and  I  once  saw  a  great  sprinter,  not  unknown  to  Yale  men, 
rise  from  his  seat,  face  the  audience,  and,  pointing  with 
his  thumb  over  his  shoulder  at  the  soubrette,  announce 
impressively:  "Do  you  know,  I  rather  like  that  girl!" 
The  show  is  usually  over  just  before  eleven,  and  then  occurs 
an  amusing,  if  unseemly,  scramble  to  get  back  to  college 


LIFE  AT  OXFORD  71 

before  the  hour  strikes.  A  man  who  stays  out  after  ten 
is  fined  threepence;  after  eleven  the  fine  is  sixpence.  When 
all  is  said,  why  shouldn't  one  sprint  for  threepence? 

If  you  stay  out  of  college  after  midnight,  the  dean  makes 
a  star-chamber  offense  of  it,  fines  you  a  "quid"  or  two, 
and  Uke  as  not  sends  you  down.  This  sounds  a  trifle  worse 
than  it  is;  for  if  you  must  be  away,  your  absence  can  usually 
be  arranged  for.  If  you  find  yourself  in  the  streets  after 
twelve,  you  may  rap  on  some  friend's  bedroom  window  and 
tell  him  of  your  phght  through  the  iron  grating.  He  will 
then  spend  the  first  half  of  the  night  in  your  bed  and  wash 
his  hands  in  your  bowl.  With  such  evidence  as  this  to 
support  him,  the  scout  is  not  apt,  if  sufficiently  retained, 
to  report  a  suspected  absence.  I  have  even  known  fellows 
to  make  their  arrangements  in  advance  and  spend  the 
night  in  town;  but  the  ruse  has  its  dangers,  and  the  penalty 
is  to  be  sent  down  for  good  and  all. 

It  is  owing  to  such  regulations  as  these  that  life  in  the 
English  college  has  the  name  of  being  cloisteral.  Just  how 
cloisteral  it  is  in  spirit  no  one  can  know  who  has  not  taken 
part  in  a  rag  in  the  quad;  and  this  is  impossible  to  an  out- 
sider, for  at  midnight  all  visitors  are  required  to  leave,  under 
a  heavy  penalty  to  their  host. 


IV 


TOM  BROWN'S  LETTER  FROM   ST.   AMBROSE'S 
COLLEGE  1 

thomas  hughes 

"St.  Ambrose,  Oxford, 
"February,  184 — . 
"My  dear  Geordie: 

"According  to  promise,  I  write  to  tell  you  how  I  get  on 
up  here,  and  what  sort  of  a  place  Oxford  is.  Of  course, 
I  don't  know  much  about  it  yet,  having  been  only  up  some 
two  weeks;  but  you  shall  have  my  first  impressions. 

"Well,  first  and  foremost,  it's  an  awfully  idle  place;  at 
any  rate,  for  us  freshmen.  Fancy  now.  I  am  in  twelve 
lectures  a  week  of  an  hour  each — Greek  Testament,  first 
book  of  Herodotus,  second  JEneid,  and  first  book  of  Euclid ! 
There's  a  treat !  Two  hours  a  day;  all  over  by  twelve,  or 
one  at  latest;  and  no  extra  work  at  all,  in  the  shape  of 
copies  of  verses,  themes,  or  other  exercises. 

"I  think  sometimes  I'm  back  in  the  lower  fifth;  for  we 
don't  get  through  more  than  we  used  to  do  there;  and  if 
you  were  to  hear  the  men  construe,  it  would  make  your  hair 
stand  on  end.  Where  on  earth  can  they  have  come  from? 
unless  they  blunder  on  purpose,  as  I  often  think.  Of  course, 
I  never  look  at  a  lecture  before  I  go  in,  I  know  it  all  nearly 
by  heart,  so  it  would  be  sheer  waste  of  time.  I  hope  I  shall 
take  to  reading  something  or  other  by  myself;    but  you 

*  From  Tom  Brown  at  Oxford — a  letter  vsrritten  soon  after  matriculation 
at  Oxford  to  a  friend  in  the  sixth  form  at  Rugby  School. 

72 


TOM  BROWN'S  LETTER  73 

know  I  never  was  much  of  a  hand  at  sapping,  and,  for  the 
present,  the  light  work  suits  me  well  enough,  for  there's 
plenty  to  see  and  learn  about  in  this  place. 

"We  keep  very  gentlemanly  hours.  Chapel  every  morn- 
ing at  eight,  and  evening  at  seven.  You  must  attend  once 
a  day,  and  twice  on  Sundays — at  least,  that's  the  rule  of 
our  college — and  be  in  gates  by  twelve  o'clock  at  night. 
Besides  which,  if  you're  a  decently  steady  fellow,  you  ought 
to  dine  in  hall  perhaps  four  days  a  week.  Hall  is  at  five 
o'clock.  And  now  you  have  the  sum  total.  All  the  rest 
of  your  time  you  may  just  do  what  you  like  with. 

"So  much  for  our  work  and  hours.  Now  for  the  place. 
Well,  it's  a  grand  old  place,  certainly;  and  I  dare  say,  if  a 
fellow  goes  straight  in  it,  and  gets  creditably  through  his 
three  years,  he  may  end  by  loving  it  as  much  as  we  do  the 
old  schoolhouse  and  quadrangle  at  Rugby.  Our  college 
is  a  fair  specimen :  a  venerable  old  front  of  crumbUng  stone 
fronting  the  street,  into  which  two  or  three  other  colleges 
look  also.  Over  the  gateway  is  a  large  room,  where  the 
college  examinations  go  on,  when  there  are  any;  and,  as 
you  enter,  you  pass  the  porter's  lodge,  where  resides  our 
janitor,  a  bustling  Uttle  man,  with  a  pot-belly,  whose  busi- 
ness it  is  to  put  down  the  time  at  which  the  men  come  in 
at  night,  and  to  keep  all  discommonsed  tradesmen,  stray 
dogs,  and  bad  characters  generally,  out  of  the  college. 

"The  large  quadrangle  into  which  you  come  first,  is 
bigger  than  ours  at  Rugby,  and  a  much  more  solemn  and 
sleepy  sort  of  a  place,  with  its  gables  and  old  mullioned 
windows.  One  side  is  occupied  by  the  hall  and  chapel; 
the  principal's  house  takes  up  half  another  side;  and  the 
rest  is  divided  into  staircases,  on  each  of  which  are  six  or 
eight  sets  of  rooms,  inhabited  by  us  undergraduates,  with 
here  and  there  a  tutor  or  fellow  dropped  down  amongst 


74  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

us  (in  the  first-floor  rooms,  of  course),  not  exactly  to  keep 
order,  but  to  act  as  a  sort  of  ballast.  This  quadrangle  is 
the  show  part  of  the  college,  and  is  generally  respectable 
and  quiet,  which  is  a  good  deal  more  than  can  be  said  for 
the  inner  quadrangle,  which  you  get  at  through  a  passage 
leading  out  of  the  other.  The  rooms  ain't  half  so  large  or 
good  in  the  inner  quad;  and  here's  where  all  we  freshmen 
live,  besides  a  lot  of  the  older  undergraduates  who  don't 
care  to  change  their  rooms.  Only  one  tutor  has  rooms  here; 
and  I  should  think,  if  he's  a  reading  man,  it  won't  be  long 
before  he  clears  out;  for  all  sorts  of  high  jinks  go  on  on  the 
grass  plot,  and  the  row  on  the  staircases  is  often  as  bad, 
and  not  half  so  respectable,  as  it  used  to  be  in  the  middle 
passage  in  the  last  week  of  the  half-year. 

"My  rooms  are  what  they  call  garrets,  right  up  in  the 
roof,  with  a  commanding  view  of  college  tiles  and  chimney- 
pots, and  of  houses  at  the  back.  No  end  of  cats,  both  col- 
lege Toms  and  strangers,  haunt  the  neighborhood,  and  I 
am  rapidly  learning  cat- talking  from  them;  but  I'm  not 
going  to  stand  it — I  don't  want  to  know  cat-talk.  The 
college  Toms  are  protected  by  the  statutes,  I  believe;  but 
I'm  going  to  buy  an  air-gun  for  the  benefit  of  the  strangers. 
My  rooms  are  pleasant  enough,  at  the  top  of  the  kitchen 
staircase,  and  separated  from  all  mankind  by  a  great,  iron- 
clamped,  outer  door,  my  oak,  which  I  sport  when  I  go  out 
or  want  to  be  quiet;  sitting-room  eighteen  by  twelve,  bed- 
room twelve  by  eight,  and  a  little  cupboard  for  the  scout. 

"Ah,  Geordie,  the  scout  is  an  institution!  Fancy  me 
waited  upon  and  valeted  by  a  stout  party  in  black,  of  quiet, 
gentlemanly  manners,  like  the  benevolent  father  in  a 
comedy.  He  takes  the  deepest  interest  in  all  my  posses- 
sions and  proceedings,  and  is  evidently  used  to  good  society, 
to  judge  by  the  amount  of  crockery  and  glass,  wines, 


TOM  BROWN'S  LETTER  75 

liquors,  and  grocery,  which  he  thinks  indispensable  for  my 
due  establishment.  He  has  also  been  good  enough  to  re- 
commend to  me  many  tradesmen  who  are  ready  to  supply 
these  articles  in  any  quantities;  each  of  whom  has  been  here 
already  a  dozen  times,  cap  in  hand,  and  vowing  that  it 
is  quite  immaterial  when  I  pay — which  is  very  kind  of 
them;  but,  with  the  highest  respect  for  friend  Perkins 
(my  scout)  and  his  obliging  friends,  I  shall  make  some  in- 
quiries before  'letting  in'  with  any  of  them.  He  waits  on 
me  in  hall,  where  we  go  in  fuU  fig  of  cap  and  gown  at  five, 
and  get  very  good  dinners,  and  cheap  enough.  It  is  rather 
a  fine  old  room,  with  a  good,  arched,  black-oak  ceiling  and 
high  panelling,  hung  round  with  pictures  of  old  swells, 
bishops  and  lords  chiefly,  who  have  endowed  the  college 
in  some  way,  or  at  least  have  fed  here  in  times  gone  by, 
and  for  whom,  'caeterisque  benefactoribus  nostris,'  we 
daily  give  thanks  in  a  long  Latin  grace,  which  one  of  the 
undergraduates  (I  think  it  must  be)  goes  and  rattles  out 
at  the  end  of  the  high  table,  and  then  comes  down  again 
from  the  dais  to  his  own  place.  No  one  feeds  at  the  high 
table  except  the  dons  and  the  gentlemen  commoners,  who 
are  undergraduates  in  velvet  caps  and  silk  gowns.  Why 
they  wear  these  instead  of  cloth  and  serge  I  haven't  yet 
made  out — I  believe  it  is  because  they  pay  double  fees;  but 
they  seem  uncommonly  wretched  up  at  the  high  table,  and 
I  should  think  would  sooner  pay  double  to  come  to  the  other 
end  of  the  hall. 

"The  chapel  is  a  quaint  little  place,  about  the  size  of  the 
chancel  of  Lutterworth  Church.  It  just  holds  us  all  com- 
fortably. The  attendance  is  regular  enough,  but  I  don't 
think  the  men  care  about  it  a  bit  in  general.  Several  I 
can  see  bring  in  Euclids,  and  other  lecture  books,  and  the 
service  is  gone  through  at  a  great  pace.    I  couldn't  think 


76  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

at  first  why  some  of  the  men  seemed  so  uncomfortable  and 
stiflF  about  the  legs  at  the  morning  service,  but  I  find  that 
they  are  the  hunting  set,  and  come  in  with  pea-coats  over 
their  pinks,  and  trousers  over  their  leather  breeches  and 
top-boots;  which  accounts  for  it.  There  are  a  few  others 
who  seem  very  devout,  and  bow  a  good  deal,  and  turn 
toward  the  altar  at  difi'erent  parts  of  the  service.  These 
are  of  the  Oxford  High-church  school,  I  believe;  but  I  shall 
soon  find  out  more  about  them.  On  the  whole,  I  feel  less 
at  home  at  present,  I  am  sorry  to  say,  in  the  chapel,  than 
anywhere  else. 

"I  was  very  nearly  forgetting  a  great  institution  of  the 
college,  which  is  the  buttery-hatch,  just  opposite  the  hall 
door.  Here  abides  the  fat  old  butler  (all  the  servants  at 
St.  Ambrose's  are  portly),  and  serves  out  limited  bread, 
butter,  and  cheese,  and  unlimited  beer  brewed  by  himself, 
for  an  hour  in  the  morning,  at  noon,  and  again  at  supper 
time.  Your  scout  always  fetches  you  a  pint  or  so  on  each 
occasion,  in  case  you  should  want  it,  and  if  you  don't,  it 
falls  to  him;  but  I  can't  say  that  my  fellow  gets  much,  for 
I  am  naturally  a  thirsty  soul,  and  cannot  often  resist  the 
malt  myself,  coming  up,  as  it  does,  fresh  and  cool,  in  one 
of  the  silver  tankards,  of  which  we  seem  to  have  an  endless 
supply. 

"I  spent  a  day  or  two  in  the  first  week,  before  I  got  shaken 
down  into  my  place  here,  in  going  round  and  seeing  the  other 
colleges,  and  finding  out  what  great  men  had  been  at  each 
(one  got  a  taste  for  that  sort  of  work  from  the  doctor,  and 
I'd  nothing  else  to  do).  Well,  I  never  was  more  interested: 
fancy  ferreting  out  Wycliffe,  the  Black  Prince,  our  friend 
Sir  Walter  Raleigh,  Pym,  Hampden,  Laud,  Ireton,  Butler, 
and  Addison,  in  one  afternoon.  I  walked  about  two  inches 
taller  in  my  trencher  cap  after  it.    Perhaps  I  may  be  going 


TOM  BROWN'S  LETTER  77 

to  make  dear  friends  with  some  fellow  who  will  change  the 
history  of  England.  Why  shouldn't  I?  There  must  have 
been  freshmen  once  who  were  chums  of  WycHffe  of  Queens, 
or  Raleigh  of  Oriel.  I  mooned  up  and  down  the  High-street, 
staring  at  all  the  young  faces  in  caps,  and  wondering  which 
of  them  would  turn  out  great  generals,  or  statesmen,  or 
poets.  Some  of  them  will,  of  course,  for  there  must  be  a 
dozen  at  least,  I  should  think,  in  every  generation  of  under- 
graduates, who  will  have  a  good  deal  to  say  to  the  ruling 
and  guiding  of  the  British  nation  before  they  die. 

"But,  after  all,  the  river  is  the  feature  of  Oxford,  to  my 
mind;  a  glorious  stream,  not  five  minutes'  walk  from  the 
colleges,  broad  enough  in  most  places  for  three  boats  to 
row  abreast.  I  expect  I  shall  take  to  boating  furiously: 
I  have  been  down  the  river  three  or  four  times  already  with 
some  other  freshmen,  and  it  is  glorious  exercise;  that  I  can 
see,  though  we  bungle  and  cut  crabs  desperately  at  present. 

"Here's  a  long  yarn  I'm  spinning  for  you;  and  I  dare 
say  after  all  you'll  say  it  tells  you  nothing,  and  you'd  rather 
have  twenty  lines  about  the  men,  and  what  they're  think- 
ing about,  and  the  meaning  and  inner  life  of  the  place,  and 
all  that.  Patience,  patience  !  I  don't  know  anything  about 
it  myself  yet,  and  have  only  had  time  to  look  at  the  shell, 
which  is  a  very  handsome  and  stately  affair;  you  shall  have 
the  kernel,  if  I  ever  get  at  it,  in  due  time. 

"And  now  write  me  a  long  letter  directly,  and  tell  me 
about  the  doctor,  and  who  are  in  the  sixth,  and  how  the 
house  goes  on,  and  what  sort  of  an  eleven  there'll  be,  and 
what  you  are  all  doing  and  thinking  about.  Come  up  here 
and  try  for  a  scholarship ;  I'll  take  you  in  and  show  you  the 
Uons.  Remember  me  to  all  old  friends. — Ever  yours 
affectionately,  T.  B." 


THE   SOCIAL  VALUE  OF  THE   COLLEGE-BRED  ^ 

WILLIAM  JAMES 

Of  what  use  is  a  college  training?  We  who  have  had  it 
seldom  hear  the  question  raised — ^we  might  be  a  Uttle  non- 
plussed to  answer  it  ofifhand.  A  certain  amount  of  medita- 
tion has  brought  me  to  this  as  the  pithiest  reply  which  I 
myself  can  give:  The  best  claim  that  a  college  education 
can  possibly  make  on  your  respect,  the  best  thing  it  can 
aspire  to  accomphsh  for  you,  is  this:  that  it  should  help 
you  to  know  a  good  man  when  you  see  him.  This  is  as  true 
of  women's  as  of  men's  colleges;  but  that  it  is  neither  a 
joke  nor  a  one-sided  abstraction  I  shall  now  endeavor  to 
show. 

What  talk  do  we  commonly  hear  about  the  contrast 
between  college  education  and  the  education  which  busi- 
ness or  technical  or  professional  schools  confer?  The  col- 
lege education  is  called  higher  because  it  is  supposed  to 
be  so  general  and  so  disinterested.  At  the  "schools"  you 
get  a  relatively  narrow  practical  skill,  you  are  told,  whereas 
the  "colleges"  give  you  the  more  liberal  culture,  the  broader 
outlook,  the  historical  perspective,  the  philosophic  atmos- 
phere, or  something  which  phrases  of  that  sort  try  to  ex- 
press. You  are  made  into  an  efficient  instrument  for  doing 
a  definite  thing,  you  hear,  at  the  schools;  but,  apart  from 

*  An  address  before  The  Association  of  American  Alumnae,  at  Radcliffe 
College,  November  7,  1907.  Reprinted  through  the  courtesy  of  McClure's 
Magazine. 

7« 


SOCIAL  VALUE  OF  THE  COLLEGE-BRED    79 

that,  you  may  remain  a  crude  and  smoky  kind  of  petroleum, 
incapable  of  spreading  light.  The  universities  and  colleges, 
on  the  other  hand,  although  they  may  leave  you  less  ef- 
ficient for  this  or  that  practical  task,  suffuse  your  whole 
mentality  with  something  more  important  than  skill.  They 
redeem  you,  make  you  well-bred;  they  make  "good  com- 
pany" of  you  mentally.  If  they  find  you  with  a  naturally 
boorish  or  caddish  mind,  they  cannot  leave  you  so,  as  a 
technical  school  may  leave  you.  This,  at  least,  is  pretended ; 
this  is  what  we  hear  among  college-trained  people  when 
they  compare  their  education  with  every  other  sort.  Now, 
exactly  how  much  does  this  signify? 

It  is  certain,  to  begin  with,  that  the  narrowest  trade  or 
professional  training  does  something  more  for  a  man  than 
to  make  a  skilful,  practical  tool  of  him — it  makes  him  also 
a  judge  of  other  men's  skill.  Whether  his  trade  be  pleading 
at  the  bar  or  surgery  or  plastering  or  plumbing,  it  develops 
a  critical  sense  in  him  for  that  sort  of  occupation.  He  under- 
stands the  difference  between  second-rate  and  first-rate 
work  in  his  whole  branch  of  industry;  he  gets  to  know  a 
good  job  in  his  own  line  as  soon  as  he  sees  it;  and  getting 
to  know  this  in  his  own  line,  he  gets  a  faint  sense  of  what 
good  work  may  mean  anyhow,  that  may,  if  circumstances 
favor,  spread  into  his  judgments  elsewhere.  Sound  work, 
clean  work,  finished  work:  feeble  work,  slack  work,  sham 
work — these  words  express  an  identical  contrast  in  many 
different  departments  of  activity.  In  so  far  forth,  then, 
even  the  humblest  manual  trade  may  beget  in  one  a  cer- 
tain small  degree  of  power  to  judge  of  good  work  generally. 

Now,  what  is  supposed  to  be  the  line  of  us  who  have  the 
higher  college  training?  Is  there  any  broader  line — since 
our  education  claims  primarily  not  to  be  "narrow" — in 
which  we  also  are  made  good  judges  between  what  is  first- 


8o      COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

rate  and  what  is  second-rate  only?  What  is  especially 
taught  in  the  colleges  has  long  been  known  by  the  name 
of  the  "humanities,"  and  these  are  often  identified  with 
Greek  and  Latin.  But  it  is  only  as  literatures,  not  as 
languages,  that  Greek  and  Latin  have  any  general  humanity 
value ;  so  that  in  a  broad  sense  the  humanities  mean  litera- 
ture primarily,  and  in  a  still  broader  sense  the  study  of 
masterpieces  in  almost  any  field  of  human  endeavor. 
Literature  keeps  the  primacy;  for  it  not  only  consists  of 
masterpieces,  but  is  largely  about  masterpieces,  being  little 
more  than  an  appreciative  chronicle  of  human  master- 
strokes, so  far  as  it  takes  the  form  of  criticism  and  history. 
You  can  give  humanistic  value  to  almost  anything  by  teach- 
ing it  historically.  Geology,  economics,  mechanics  are 
humanities  when  taught  with  reference  to  the  successive 
achievements  of  the  geniuses  to  which  these  sciences  owe 
their  being.  Not  taught  thus,  literature  remains  grammar, 
art  a  catalogue,  history  a  list  of  dates,  and  natural  science 
a  sheet  of  formulas  and  weights  and  measures. 

The  sifting  of  human  creations ! — nothing  less  than  this 
is  what  we  ought  to  mean  by  the  humanities.  Essentially 
this  means  biography;  what  our  colleges  should  teach  is, 
therefore,  biographical  history,  that  not  of  politics  merely, 
but  of  anything  and  everything  so  far  as  human  efforts 
and  conquests  are  factors  that  have  played  their  part. 
Studying  in  this  way,  we  learn  what  types  of  activity  have 
stood  the  test  of  time;  we  acquire  standards  of  the  excellent 
and  durable.  All  our  arts  and  sciences  and  institutions  are 
but  so  many  quests  of  perfection  on  the  part  of  men;  and 
when  we  see  how  diverse  the  types  of  excellence  may  be, 
how  various  the  tests,  how  flexible  the  adaptations,  we  gain 
a  richer  sense  of  what  the  terms  "better"  and  "worse" 
may  signify  in  general.    Our  critical  sensibilities  grow  both 


SOCIAL  VALUE  OF  THE   COLLEGE-BRED   8i 

more  acute  and  less  fanatical.  We  sympathize  with  men's 
mistakes  even  in  the  act  of  penetrating  them;  we  feel  the 
pathos  of  lost  causes  and  misguided  epochs  even  while  we 
applaud  what  overcame  them. 

Such  words  are  vague  and  such  ideas  are  inadequate, 
but  their  meaning  is  unmistakable.  What  the  colleges — 
teaching  humanities  by  examples  which  may  be  special, 
but  which  must  be  typical  and  pregnant — should  at  least 
try  to  give  us,  is  a  general  sense  of  what,  under  various 
disguises,  superiority  has  always  signified  and  may  still 
signify.  The  feeling  for  a  good  human  job  anywhere,  the 
admiration  of  the  really  admirable,  the  disesteem  of  what 
is  cheap  and  trashy  and  impermanent — this  is  what  we  call 
the  critical  sense,  the  sense  for  ideal  values.  It  is  the  better 
part  of  what  men  know  as  wisdom.  Some  of  us  are  wise 
in  this  way  naturally  and  by  genius;  some  of  us  never 
become  so.  But  to  have  spent  one's  youth  at  college,  in 
contact  with  the  choice  and  rare  and  precious,  and  yet  still 
to  be  a  blind  prig  or  vulgarian,  unable  to  scent  out  human 
excellence  or  to  divine  it  amid  its  accidents,  to  know  it 
only  when  ticketed  and  labelled  and  forced  on  us  by  others, 
this  indeed  should  be  accounted  the  very  calamity  and 
shipwreck  of  a  higher  education. 

The  sense  for  human  superiority  ought,  then,  to  be  con- 
sidered our  line,  as  boring  subways  is  the  engineer's  line 
and  the  surgeon's  is  appendicitis.  Our  colleges  ought  to 
have  lit  up  in  us  a  lasting  relish  for  the  better  kind  of  man, 
a  loss  of  appetite  for  mediocrities,  and  a  disgust  for  cheap 
jacks.  We  ought  to  smell,  as  it  were,  the  difference  of 
quality  in  men  and  their  proposals  when  we  enter  the  world 
of  affairs  about  us.  Expertness  in  this  might  well  atone  for 
some  of  our  awkwardness  at  accounts,  for  some  of  our  ig- 
norance of  dynamos.    The  best  claim  we  can  make  for  the 


82      COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

higher  education,  the  best  single  phrase  in  which  we  can 
tell  what  it  ought  to  do  for  us,  is,  then,  exactly  what  I  said : 
it  should  enable  us  to  know  a  good  man  when  we  see  him. 

That  the  phrase  is  anything  but  an  empty  epigram  fol- 
lows from  the  fact  that  if  you  ask  in  what  Une  it  is  most 
important  that  a  democracy  like  ours  should  have  its  sons 
and  daughters  skilful,  you  see  that  it  is  this  line  more  than 
any  other.  *'The  people  in  their  wisdom" — this  is  the  kind 
of  wisdom  most  needed  by  the  people.  Democracy  is  on 
its  trial,  and  no  one  knows  how  it  will  stand  the  ordeal. 
Abounding  about  us  are  pessimistic  prophets.  Fickleness 
and  violence  used  to  be,  but  are  no  longer,  the  vices  which 
they  charge  to  democracy.  What  its  critics  now  afl&rm  is 
that  its  preferences  are  inveterately  for  the  inferior.  So 
it  was  in  the  beginning,  they  say,  and  so  it  will  be  world 
without  end.  Vulgarity  enthroned  and  institutionalized, 
elbowing  everything  superior  from  the  highway,  this,  they 
tell  us,  is  our  irremediable  destiny;  and  the  picture  papers 
of  the  European  Continent  are  already  drawing  Uncle  Sam 
with  the  hog  instead  of  the  eagle  for  his  heraldic  emblem. 
The  privileged  aristocracies  of  the  foretime,  with  all  their 
iniquities,  did  at  least  preserve  some  taste  for  higher  human 
quality  and  honor  certain  forms  of  refinement  by  their 
enduring  traditions.  But  when  democracy  is  sovereign, 
its  doubters  say,  nobility  will  form  a  sort  of  invisible  church, 
and  sincerity  and  refinement,  stripped  of  honor,  precedence, 
and  favor,  will  have  to  vegetate  on  sufferance  in  private 
corners.  They  will  have  no  general  influence.  They  will 
be  harmless  eccentricities. 

Now,  who  can  be  absolutely  certain  that  this  may  not 
be  the  career  of  democracy  ?  Nothing  future  is  quite  secure; 
states  enough  have  inwardly  rotted;  and  democracy  as  a 
whole  may  undergo  self-poisoning.    But,  on  the  other  hand, 


SOCIAL  VALUE  OF  THE  COLLEGE-BRED   83 

democracy  is  a  kind  of  religion,  and  we  are  bound  not  to 
admit  its  failure.  Faiths  and  Utopias  are  the  noblest  exercise 
of  human  reason,  and  no  one  with  a  spark  of  reason  in  him 
will  sit  down  fataUstically  before  the  croaker's  picture. 
The  best  of  us  are  filled  with  the  contrary  vision  of  a  democ- 
racy stumbling  through  every  error  till  its  institutions  glow 
with  justice  and  its  customs  shine  with  beauty.  Our  better 
men  shall  show  the  way  and  we  shall  follow  them;  so  we 
are  brought  round  again  to  the  mission  of  the  higher  educa- 
tion in  helping  us  to  know  the  better  kind  of  man  whenever 
we  see  him. 

The  notion  that  a  people  can  run  itself  and  its  affairs 
anonymously  is  now  well  known  to  be  the  silliest  of  absurdi- 
ties. Mankind  does  nothing  save  through  initiatives  on  the 
part  of  inventors,  great  or  small,  and  imitation  by  the  rest 
of  us — these  are  the  sole  factors  active  in  human  progress. 
Individuals  of  genius  show  the  way,  and  set  the  patterns, 
which  common  people  then  adopt  and  follow.  The  rivalry 
of  the  patterns  is  the  history  of  the  world.  Our  democratic 
problem  thus  is  statable  in  ultrasimple  terms:  Who  are 
the  kind  of  men  from  whom  our  majorities  shall  take  their 
cue?  Whom  shall  they  treat  as  rightful  leaders?  We  and 
our  leaders  are  the  x  and  the  y  of  the  equation  here;  all 
other  historic  circumstances,  be  they  economical,  political, 
or  intellectual,  are  only  the  background  of  occasion  on  which 
the  living  drama  works  itself  out  between  us. 

In  this  very  simple  way  does  the  value  of  our  educated 
class  define  itself:  we  more  than  others  should  be  able  to 
divine  the  worthier  and  better  leaders.  The  terms  here  are 
monstrously  simpUfied,  of  course,  but  such  a  bird's-eye 
view  lets  us  immediately  take  our  bearings.  In  our  democ- 
racy, where  everything  else  is  so  shifting,  we  alumni  and 
alumnae  of  the  colleges  are  the  only  permanent  presence 


84  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

that  corresponds  to  the  aristocracy  in  older  countries.  We 
have  continuous  traditions,  as  they  have;  our  motto,  too, 
is  noblesse  oblige;  and,  unlike  them,  we  stand  for  ideal 
interests  solely,  for  we  have  no  corporate  selfishness  and 
wield  no  powers  of  corruption.  We  ought  to  have  our  own 
class  consciousness.  "Les  intellectuels ! "  What  prouder 
club  name  could  there  be  than  this  one,  used  ironically  by 
the  party  of  "red  blood,"  the  party  of  every  stupid  prejudice 
and  passion,  during  the  anti-Dreyfus  craze,  to  satirize  the 
men  in  France  who  still  retained  some  critical  sense  and 
judgment?  Critical  sense,  it  has  to  be  confessed,  is  not  an 
exciting  term,  hardly  a  banner  to  carry  in  processions. 
Affections  for  old  habit,  currents  of  self-interest,  and  gales 
of  passion  are  the  forces  that  keep  the  human  ship  moving; 
and  the  pressure  of  the  judicious  pilot's  hand  upon  the  tiller 
is  a  relatively  insignificant  energy.  But  the  affections, 
passions,  and  interests  are  shifting,  successive,  and  dis- 
traught; they  blow  in  alternation  while  the  pilot's  hand 
is  steadfast.  He  knows  the  compass,  and,  with  all  the  lee- 
ways he  is  obliged  to  tack  toward,  he  always  makes  some 
headway.  A  small  force,  if  it  never  lets  up,  will  accumulate 
effects  more  considerable  than  those  of  much  greater  forces 
if  these  work  inconsistently.  The  ceaseless  whisper  of  the 
more  permanent  ideals,  the  steady  tug  of  truth  and  justice, 
give  them  but  time,  must  warp  the  world  in  their  direction. 
This  bird's-eye  view  of  the  general  steering  function  of 
the  college-bred  amid  the  driftings  of  democracy  ought  to 
help  us  to  a  wider  vision  of  what  our  colleges  themselves 
should  aim  at.  If  we  are  to  be  the  yeast-cake  for  democ- 
racy's dough,  if  we  are  to  make  it  rise  with  culture's  prefer- 
ences, we  must  see  to  it  that  culture  spreads  broad  sails. 
We  must  shake  the  old  double  reefs  out  of  the  canvas  into 
the  wind  and  sunshine,  and  let  in  every  modern  subject, 


SOCIAL  VALUE  OF  THE  COLLEGE-BRED   85 

sure  that  any  subject  will  prove  hiunanistic,  if  its  setting 
be  kept  only  wide  enough. 

Stevenson  says  somewhere  to  his  reader:  **You  think 
you  are  just  making  this  bargain,  but  you  are  really  laying 
down  a  link  in  the  policy  of  mankind."  Well,  your  tech- 
nical school  should  enable  you  to  make  your  bargain  splen- 
didly; but  your  college  should  show  you  just  the  place  of 
that  kind  of  bargain — a  pretty  poor  place,  possibly — in  the 
whole  policy  of  mankind.  That  is  the  kind  of  liberal  out- 
look, of  perspective,  of  atmosphere,  which  should  surround 
every  subject  as  a  college  deals  with  it. 

We  of  the  colleges  must  eradicate  a  curious  notion  which 
numbers  of  good  people  have  about  such  ancient  seats  of 
learning  as  Harvard.  To  many  ignorant  outsiders,  that 
name  suggests  little  more  than  a  kind  of  sterilized  conceit 
and  incapacity  for  being  pleased.  In  Edith  Wyatt's  ex- 
quisite book  of  Chicago  sketches  called  Every  One  His  Own 
Way  there  is  a  couple  who  stand  for  culture  in  the  sense 
of  exclusiveness,  Richard  Elliot  and  his  feminine  counter- 
part— feeble  caricatures  of  mankind,  unable  to  know  any 
good  thing  when  they  see  it,  incapable  of  enjoyment  unless 
a  printed  label  gives  them  leave.  Possibly  this  type  of 
culture  may  exist  near  Cambridge  and  Boston,  there  may 
be  specimens  there,  for  priggishness  is  just  like  painters' 
colic  or  any  other  trade  disease.  But  every  good  college 
makes  its  students  immune  against  this  malady,  of  which 
the  microbe  haunts  the  neighborhood-printed  pages.  It 
does  so  by  its  general  tone  being  too  hearty  for  the  microbe's 
life.  Real  culture  lives  by  sympathies  and  admirations, 
not  by  dislikes  and  disdains — under  all  misleading  wrap- 
pings it  pounces  unerringly  upon  the  human  core.  If  a 
college,  through  the  inferior  human  influences  that  have 
grown  regnant  there,  fails  to  catch  the  robuster  tone,  its 


86  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

failure  is  colossal,  for  its  social  function  stops:  democracy 
gives  it  a  wide  berth,  turns  toward  it  a  deaf  ear. 

''Tone,"  to  be  sure,  is  a  terribly  vague  word  to  use,  but 
there  is  no  other,  and  this  whole  meditation  is  over  ques- 
tions of  tone.  By  their  tone  are  all  things  human  either 
lost  or  saved.  If  democracy  is  to  be  saved  it  must  catch 
the  higher,  healthier  tone.  If  we  are  to  impress  it  with 
our  preferences,  we  ourselves  must  use  the  proper  tone, 
which  we,  in  turn,  must  have  caught  from  our  own  teachers. 
It  all  reverts  in  the  end  to  the  action  of  innumerable  imita- 
tive individuals  upon  each  other  and  to  the  question  of 
whose  tone  has  the  highest  spreading  power.  As  a  class, 
we  college  graduates  should  look  to  it  that  ours  has  spread- 
ing power.    It  ought  to  have  the  highest  spreading  power. 

In  our  essential  function  of  indicating  the  better  men, 
we  now  have  formidable  competitors  outside.  McClure's 
Magazine,  the  American  Magazine,  Collier's  Weekly,  and, 
in  its  fashion,  the  World's  Work,  constitute  together  a  real 
popular  university  along  this  very  line.  It  would  be  a  pity 
if  any  future  historian  were  to  have  to  write  words  like 
these:  "By  the  middle  of  the  twentieth  century  the  higher 
institutions  of  learning  had  lost  all  influence  over  public 
opinion  in  the  United  States.  But  the  mission  of  raising 
the  tone  of  democracy,  which  they  had  proved  themselves 
so  lamentably  unfitted  to  exert,  was  assumed  with  rare 
enthusiasm  and  prosecuted  with  extraordinary  skill  and 
success  by  a  new  educational  power;  and  for  the  clarifica- 
tion of  their  human  sympathies  and  elevation  of  their  human 
preferences,  the  people  at  large  acquired  the  habit  of  re- 
sorting exclusively  to  the  guidance  of  certain  private  lit- 
erary adventures,  commonly  designated  in  the  market  by 
the  affectionate  name  of  ten-cent  magazines." 

Must  not  we  of  the  colleges  see  to  it  that  no  historian 


SOCIAL  VALUE  OF  THE  COLLEGE-BRED   87 

shall  ever  say  anything  like  this?  Vague  as  the  phrase  of 
knowing  a  good  man  when  you  see  him  may  be,  diflfuse  and 
indefinite  as  one  must  leave  its  application,  is  there  any 
other  formula  that  describes  so  well  the  result  at  which 
our  institutions  ought  to  aim?  If  they  do  that,  they  do 
the  best  thing  conceivable.  If  they  fail  to  do  it,  they  fail 
in  very  deed.  It  surely  is  a  fine  synthetic  formula.  If 
our  faculties  and  graduates  could  once  collectively  come 
to  realize  it  as  the  great  underlying  purpose  toward  which 
they  have  always  been  more  or  less  obscurely  groping,  a 
great  clearness  would  be  shed  over  many  of  their  problems; 
and,  as  for  their  influence  in  the  midst  of  our  social  system, 
it  would  embark  upon  a  new  career  of  strength. 


VI 

WHAT  IS  A  COLLEGE  FOR?» 

WOODROW  WILSON 

/    It  may  seem  singular  that  at  this  time  of  day  and  in  this 
/  conj&dent  century  it  should  be  necessary  to  ask :  What  is  a 
\ college  for?    But  it  has  become  necessary.     I  take  it  for 
granted  that  there  are  few  real  doubts  concerning  the  ques- 
tion in  the  minds  of  those  who  look  at  the  college  from  the 
inside  and  have  made  themselves  responsible  for  the  realiza- 
tion of  its  serious  purposes;  but, there  are  many  divergent 
\  opinions  held  concerning  it  by  those  who,  standing  on  the 
outside,  have  pondered  the  uses  of  the  college  in  the  life  of 
the  country;  and  their  many  varieties  of  opinion  may  very 
well  have  created  a  confusion  of  counsel  in  the  pubhc  mind. 
They  are,  of  course,  entirely  entitled  to  their  independent 
opinions  and  have  a  right  to  expect  that  full  consideration 
will  be  given  what  they  say  by  those  who  are  in  fact  re- 
sponsible.   The  college  is  for  the  use  of  the  nation,  not  for 
>  the  satisfaction  of  those  who  administer  it  or  for  the  carry- 
ing out  of  their  private  views.     They  may  speak  as  experts 
and  with  a  very  intimate  knowledge,  but  they  also  speak 
as  servants  of  the  country  and  must  be  challenged  to  give 
reasons  for  the  convictions  they  entertain.     Controversy, 
it  may  be,  is  not  profitable  in  such  matters,  because  it  is 
so  easy,  in  the  face  of  opposition,  to  become  a  partisan  of 

•  Reprinted  through  the  courtesy  of  President  Woodrow  Wilson  from 
Scribner's  Magazine. 

88 


WHAT  IS  A  COLLEGE  FOR?  89 

one's  own  views  and  exaggerate  them  in  seeking  to  vin- 
dicate and  establish  them;  but  an  explicit  profession  of 
faith  cannot  fail  to  clear  the  air,  and  to  assist  the  thinking 
both  of  those  who  are  responsible  and  of  those  who  only 
look  on  and  seek  to  make  serviceable  comment. 

Why,  then,  should  a  man  send  his  son  to  college  when 
school  is  finished ;  or  why  should  he  advise  any  youngster  in 
whom  he  is  interested  to  go  to  college  ?  What  does  he  expect 
and  desire  him  to  get  there?  The  question  might  be  car- 
ried back  and  asked  with  regard  to  the  higher  schools  also 
to  which  lads  resort  for  preparation  for  college.  What  are 
they  meant  to  get  there?  But  it  will  suffice  to  centre  the 
question  on  the  college.  What  should  a  lad  go  to  college 
for — for  work,  for  the  realization  of  a  definite  aim,  for  dis- 
cipline and  a  severe  training  of  his  faculties,  or  for  relaxa- 
tion, for  the  release  and  exercise  of  his  social  powers,  for 
the  broadening  effects  of  life  in  a  sort  of  miniature  world 
in  which  study  is  only  one  among  many  interests  ?  That  is 
not  the  only  alternative  suggested  by  recent  discussions. 
They  also  suggest  a  sharp  alternative  with  regard  to  the 
character  of  the  study  the  college  student  should  under- 
take. Should  he  seek  at  college  a  general  discipline  of  his 
faculties,  a  general  awakening  to  the  issues  and  interests 
of  the  modern  world,  or  should  he,  rather,  seek  specially 
and  definitely  to  prepare  himself  for  the  work  he  expects 
to  do  after  he  leaves  college,  for  his  support  and  advance- 
ment in  the  world  ?  The  two  alternatives  are  very  different. 
The  one  asks  whether  the  lad  does  not  get  as  good  a  prepa- 
ration for  modern  life  by  being  manager  of  a  football  team 
with  a  complicated  programme  of  intercollegiate  games  and 
trips  away  from  home  as  by  becoming  proficient  in  mathe- 
matics or  in  history  and  mastering  the  abstract  tasks  of 
the  mind;  the  other  asks  whether  he  is  not  better  prepared 


90      COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

by  being  given  the  special  skill  and  training  of  a  particular 
calling  or  profession,  an  immediate  drill  in  the  work  he  is 
to  do  after  he  graduates,  than  by  being  made  a  master  of 
his  own  mind  in  the  more  general  fields  of  knowledge  to 
which  his  subsequent  calling  will  be  related,  in  all  proba- 
bility, only  as  every  undertaking  is  related  to  the  general 
thought  and  experience  of  the  world. 

''Learning"  is  not  involved.  No  one  has  ever  dreamed 
of  imparting  learning  to  undergraduates.  It  cannot  be 
done  in  four  years.  To  become  a  man  of  learning  is  the 
enterprise  of  a  lifetime.  The  issue  does  not  rise  to  that 
high  ground.  The  question  is  merely  this:  Do  we  wish 
college  to  be,  first  of  all  and  chiefly,  a  place  of  mental  disci- 
pline or  only  a  school  of  general  experience;  and,  if  we  wish 
it  to  be  a  place  of  mental  discipline,  of  what  sort  do  we 
wish  the  discipline  to  be — a  general  awakening  and  release 
of  the  faculties  or  a  preliminary  initiation  into  the  drill  of 
a  particular  vocation? 

These  are  questions  which  go  to  the  root  of  the  matter. 
They  admit  of  no  simple  and  confident  answer.  Their 
roots  spring  out  of  life  and  all  its  varied  sources.  To  reply 
to  them,  therefore,  involves  an  examination  of  modem 
life  and  an  assessment  of  the  part  an  educated  man  ought 
to  play  in  it — an  analysis  which  no  man  may  attempt  with 
perfect  self-confidence.  The  life  of  our  day  is  a  very  com- 
plex thing  which  no  man  can  pretend  to  comprehend  in  its 
entirety. 

But  some  things  are  obvious  enough  concerning  it.  There 
is  an  uncommon  challenge  to  efifort  in  the  modern  world, 
and  all  the  achievements  to  which  it  challenges  are  un- 
commonly difficult.  Individuals  are  yoked  together  in 
modern  enterprise  by  a  harness  which  is  both  new  and 
inelastic.     The  man  who  understands  only  some  single 


WHAT  IS  A  COLLEGE  FOR?  91 

process,  some  single  piece  of  work  which  he  has  been  set 
to  do,  will  never  do  anything  else,  and  is  apt  to  be  deprived 
at  almost  any  moment  of  the  opportunity  to  do  even  that, 
because  processes  change,  industry  undergoes  instant  revo- 
lutions. New  inventions,  fresh  discoveries,  alterations  in 
the  markets  of  the  world  throw  accustomed  methods  and 
the  men  who  are  accustomed  to  them  out  of  date  and  use 
without  pause  or  pity.  The  man  of  special  skill  may  be 
changed  into  an  unskilled  laborer  overnight.  Moreover, 
it  is  a  day  in  which  no  enterprise  stands  alone  or  indepen- 
dent, but  is  related  to  every  other  and  feels  changes  in  all 
parts  of  the  globe.  The  men  with  mere  skill,  with  mere 
technical  knowledge,  will  be  mere  servants  perpetually, 
and  may  at  any  time  become  useless  servants,  their  skill 
gone  out  of  use  and  fashion.  The  particular  thing  they  do 
may  become  unnecessary  or  may  be  so  changed  that  they 
cannot  comprehend  or  adjust  themselves  to  the  change. 

These,  then,  are  the  things  the  modern  world  must  have 
in  its  trained  men,  and  I  do  not  know  where  else  it  is  to  get 
them  if  not  from  its  educated  men  and  the  occasional  self- 
developed  genius  of  an  exceptional  man  here  and  there. 
It  needs,  at  the  top,  not  a  few,  but  many  men  with  the 
power  to  organize  and  guide.  The  college  is  meant  to 
stimulate  in  a  considerable  number  of  men  what  would 
be  stimulated  in  only  a  few  if  we  were  to  depend  entirely 
upon  nature  and  circumstance.  Below  the  ranks  of  gen- 
eralship and  guidance,  the  modern  world  needs  for  the  exe- 
cution of  its  varied  and  difl&cult  business  a  very  much 
larger  number  of  men  with  great  capacity  and  readiness 
for  the  rapid  and  concentrated  exertion  of  a  whole  series 
of  faculties:  plaiming  faculties  as  well  as  technical  skill,  the 
ability  to  handle  men  as  well  as  to  handle  tools  and  correct 
processes,  faculties  of  adjustment  and  adaptation  as  well 


92  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

as  of  precise  execution — men  of  resource  as  well  as  knowl- 
edge. These  are  the  athletes,  the  athletes  of  faculty,  of 
which  our  generation  most  stands  in  need.  All  through  its 
ranks,  besides,  it  needs  masterful  men  who  can  acquire  a 
working  knowledge  of  many  things  readily,  quickly,  in- 
telligently, and  with  exactness — things  they  had  not  fore- 
seen or  prepared  themselves  for  beforehand,  and  for  which 
they  could  not  have  prepared  themselves  beforehand. 
Quick  apprehension,  quick  comprehension,  quick  action 
are  what  modern  life  puts  a  premium  upon — a  readiness  to 
turn  this  way  or  that  and  not  lose  force  or  momentum. 

To  me,  then,  the  question  seems  to  be :  Shall  the  lad  who 
goes  to  college  go  there  for  the  purpose  of  getting  ready  to 
be  a  servant  merely,  a  servant  who  will  be  nobody  and 
who  may  become  useless,  or  shall  he  go  there  for  the  pur- 
pose of  getting  ready  to  be  a  master  adventurer  in  the  field 
of  modern  opportunity? 

We  must  expect  hewers  of  wood  and  drawers  of  water 
to  come  out  of  the  colleges  in  their  due  proportion,  of 
course,  but  I  take  it  for  granted  that  even  the  least  gifted 
of  them  did  not  go  to  college  with  the  ambition  to  be  nothing 
more.  And  yet  one  has  hardly  made  the  statement  before 
he  begins  to  doubt  whether  he  can  safely  take  anything 
for  granted.  Part  of  the  very  question  we  are  discussing 
is  the  ambition  with  which  young  men  now  go  to  college. 
It  is  a  day  when  a  college  course  has  become  fashionable — 
but  not  for  the  purpose  of  learning,  not  for  the  purpose 
of  obtaining  a  definite  preparation  for  anything — no  such 
purpose  could  become  fashionable.  The  clientage  of  our 
colleges  has  greatly  changed  since  the  time  when  most  of 
the  young  men  who  resorted  to  them  did  so  with  a  view 
to  entering  one  or  other  of  the  learned  professions.  Young 
men  who  expect  to  go  into  business  of  one  kind  or  another 


WHAT  IS  A  COLLEGE  FOR?  93 

now  outnumber  among  our  undergraduates  those  who 
expect  to  make  some  sort  of  learning  the  basis  of  their  work 
throughout  life;  and  I  dare  say  that  they  generally  go  to 
college  without  having  made  any  very  definite  analysis 
of  their  aim  and  purpose  in  going.  Their  parents  seem  to 
have  made  as  little. 

The  enormous  increase  of  wealth  in  the  country  in  recent 
years,  too,  has  had  its  effect  upon  the  colleges — not  in  the 
way  that  might  have  been  expected — not,  as  yet,  by  chang- 
ing the  standard  of  life  to  any  very  noticeable  extent  or 
introducing  luxury  and  extravagance  and  vicious  indul- 
gence. College  undergraduates  have  usually  the  fresh- 
ness of  youth  about  them,  out  of  which  there  springs  a 
wholesome  simplicity,  and  it  is  not  easy  to  spoil  them  or 
to  destroy  their  natural  democracy.  They  make  a  life  of 
their  own  and  insist  upon  the  maintenance  of  its  standards. 
But  the  increase  of  wealth  has  brought  into  the  colleges, 
in  rapidly  augmenting  numbers,  the  sons  of  very  rich 
men,  and  lads  who  expect  to  inherit  wealth  are  not  as 
easily  stimulated  to  effort,  are  not  as  apt  to  form  definite 
and  serious  purposes,  as  those  who  know  that  they  must 
whet  their  wits  for  the  struggle  of  life. 

There  was  a  time  when  the  mere  possession  of  wealth 
conferred  distinction;  and  when  wealth  confers  distinction 
it  is  apt  to  breed  a  sort  of  consciousness  of  opportunity 
and  responsibility  in  those  who  possess  it  and  incline  them 
to  seek  serious  achievement.  But  that  time  is  long  past 
in  America.  Wealth  is  common.  And,  by  the  same  token, 
the  position  of  the  lad  who  is  to  inherit  it  is  a  peculiarly 
disadvantageous  one,  if  the  standard  of  success  is  to  rise 
above  mediocrity.  Wealth  removes  the  necessity  for  effort, 
and  yet  effort  is  necessary  for  the  attainment  of  distinction, 
and  very  great  effort  at  that,  in  the  modem  world,  as  I 


94  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

have  already  pointed  out.  It  would  look  as  if  the  ordinary 
lad  with  expectations  were  foredoomed  to  obscurity;  for 
the  ordinary  lad  will  not  exert  himself  unless  he  must. 

We  live  in  an  age  in  which  no  achievement  is  to  be 
cheaply  had.  All  the  cheap  achievements,  open  to  ama- 
teurs, are  exhausted  and  have  become  commonplace. 
Adventure,  for  example,  is  no  longer  extraordinary:  which 
is  another  way  of  saying  that  it  is  commonplace.  Any 
amateur  may  seek  and  find  adventure;  but  it  has  been 
sought  and  had  in  all  its  kinds.  Restless  men,  idle  men, 
chivalrous  men,  men  drawn  on  by  mere  curiosity  and  men 
drawn  on  by  love  of  the  knowledge  that  lies  outside  books 
and  laboratories,  have  crossed  the  whole  face  of  the  habita- 
ble globe  in  search  of  it,  ferreting  it  out  in  corners  even,  fol- 
lowing its  by-paths  and  beating  its  coverts,  and  it  is  nowhere 
any  longer  a  novelty  or  distinction  to  have  discovered  and 
enjoyed  it.  The  whole  round  of  pleasure,  moreover,  has 
been  exhausted  time  out  of  mind,  and  most  of  it  discredited 
as  not  pleasure  after  all,  but  just  an  expensive  counterfeit; 
so  that  many  rich  people  have  been  driven  to  devote  them- 
selves to  expense  regardless  of  pleasure.  No  new  pleasure, 
I  am  credibly  informed,  has  been  invented  within  the 
memory  of  man.  For  every  genuine  thrill  and  satisfaction, 
therefore,  we  are  apparently,  in  this  sophisticated  world, 
shut  in  to  work,  to  modifying  and  quickening  the  life  of 
the  age.  If  college  be  one  of  the  highways  to  Ufe  and 
achievement,  it  must  be  one  of  the  highways  to  work. 

The  man  who  comes  out  of  college  into  the  modern  world 
must,  therefore,  have  got  out  of  it,  if  he  has  not  wasted 
four  vitally  significant  years  of  his  life,  a  quickening  and  a 
training  which  will  make  him  in  some  degree  a  master 
among  men.  If  he  has  got  less,  college  was  not  worth  his 
while.    To  have  made  it  worth  his  while  he  must  have  got 


WHAT  IS  A  COLLEGE  FOR?  95 

such  a  preparation  and  development  of  his  faculties  as  will 
give  him  movement  as  well  as  mere  mechanical  efficiency 
in  affairs  complex,  difficult,  and  subject  to  change.  The 
word  efficiency  has  in  our  day  the  power  to  think  at  the 
centre  of  it,  the  power  of  independent  movement  and  ini- 
tiative. It  is  not  merely  the  suitability  to  be  a  good  tool, 
it  is  the  power  to  wield  tools,  and  among  the  tools  are  men 
and  circumstances  and  changing  processes  of  industry, 
changing  phases  of  life  itself.  There  should  be  technical 
schools  a  great  many  and  the  technical  schools  of  America 
should  be  among  the  best  in  the  world.  The  men  they 
train  are  indispensable.  The  modern  world  needs  more 
tools  than  managers,  more  workmen  than  master  work- 
men. But  even  the  technical  schools  must  have  some 
thought  of  mastery  and  adaptability  in  their  processes; 
and  the  colleges,  which  are  not  technical  schools,  should 
think  of  that  chiefly.  We  must  distinguish  what  the  col- 
lege is  for,  without  disparaging  any  other  school,  of  any 
other  kind.  It  is  for  the  training  of  the  men  who  are  to 
rise  above  the  ranks. 

That  is  what  a  college  is  for.  What  it  does,  what  it 
requires  of  its  undergraduates  and  of  its  teachers,  should 
be  adjusted  to  that  conception.  The  very  statement  of 
the  object,  which  must  be  plain  to  all  who  make  any  dis- 
tinction at  all  between  a  college  and  a  technical  school, 
makes  it  evident  that  the  college  must  subject  its  men  to 
a  general  intellectual  training  which  will  be  narrowed  to 
no  one  point  of  view,  to  no  one  vocation  or  calling.  It 
must  release  and  quicken  as  many  faculties  of  the  mind  as 
possible — and  not  only  release  and  quicken  them  but  disci- 
pline and  strengthen  them  also  by  putting  them  to  the 
test  of  systematic  labor.  Work,  definite,  exacting,  long 
continued,  but  not  narrow  or  petty  or  merely  rule  of  thumb, 


96  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

must  be  its  law  of  life  for  those  who  would  pass  its  gates 
and  go  out  with  its  authentication. 

By  a  general  training  I  do  not  mean  vague  spaces  of 
study,  miscellaneous  fields  of  reading,  a  varied  smattering 
of  a  score  of  subjects  and  the  thorough  digestion  of  none. 
The  field  of  modem  knowledge  is  extremely  wide  and 
varied.  After  a  certain  number  of  really  fundamental 
subjects  have  been  studied  in  the  schools,  the  college  under- 
graduate must  be  offered  a  choice  of  the  route  he  will 
travel  in  carrying  his  studies  further.  He  cannot  be  shown 
the  whole  body  of  knowledge  within  a  single  curriculum. 
There  is  no  longer  any  single  highway  of  learning.  The 
roads  that  traverse  its  vast  and  crowded  spaces  are  not 
even  parallel,  and  four  years  is  too  short  a  time  in  which 
to  search  them  all  out.  But  there  is  a  general  programme 
still  possible  by  which  the  college  student  can  be  made 
acquainted  with  the  field  of  modern  learning  by  sample, 
by  which  he  can  be  subjected  to  the  several  kinds  of  mental 
discipline — ^in  philosophy,  in  some  one  of  the  great  sciences, 
in  some  one  of  the  great  languages  which  carry  the  thought 
of  the  world,  in  history  and  in  poUtics,  which  is  its  frame- 
work— which  will  give  him  valid  naturalization  as  a  citizen 
of  the  world  of  thought,  the  world  of  educated  men — and 
no  smatterer  merely,  able  barely  to  spell  its  constitution 
out,  but  a  man  who  has  really  comprehended  and  made 
use  of  its  chief  intellectual  processes  and  is  ready  to  lay  his 
mind  alongside  its  tasks  with  some  confidence  that  he  can 
master  them  and  can  imderstand  why  and  how  they  are 
to  be  performed.  This  is  the  general  training  which  should 
be  characteristic  of  the  college,  and  the  men  who  undergo 
it  ought  to  be  made  to  undergo  it  with  deep  seriousness 
and  diligent  labor;  not  as  soft  amateurs  with  whom  learn- 
ing and  its  thorough  tasks  are  side  interests  merely,  but 


WHAT  IS  A  COLLEGE  FOR?  97 

as  those  who  approach  life  with  the  intention  of  becoming 
professionals  in  its  fields  of  achievement. 

Just  now,  where  this  is  attempted,  it  seems  to  fail  of 
success.  College  men,  it  is  said,  and  often  said  with  truth, 
come  out  undisciplined,  untrained,  unfitted  for  what  they 
are  about  to  undertake.  It  is  argued  therefore,  that  what 
they  should  have  been  given  was  special  vocational  in- 
struction; that  if  they  had  had  that  they  would  have  been 
interested  in  their  work  while  they  were  undergraduates, 
would  have  taken  it  more  seriously,  and  would  have  come 
out  of  college  ready  to  be  used,  as  they  now  cannot  be. 
No  doubt  that  is  to  be  preferred  to  a  scattered  and  aim- 
less choice  of  studies,  and  no  doubt  what  the  colleges  offer 
is  miscellaneous  and  aimless  enough  in  many  cases;  but, 
at  best,  these  are  very  hopeful  assumptions  on  the  part 
of  those  who  would  convert  our  colleges  into  vocational 
schools.  They  are  generally  put  forward  by  persons  who 
do  not  know  how  college  life  and  work  are  now  organized 
and  conducted.  I  do  not  wonder  that  they  know  little  of 
what  has  happened.  The  whole  thing  is  of  very  recent 
development,  at  any  rate  in  its  elaborate  complexity.  It 
is  a  growth,  as  we  now  see  it,  of  the  last  ten  or  twelve  years; 
and  even  recent  graduates  of  our  colleges  would  rub  their 
eyes  incredulously  to  see  it  if  they  were  to  stand  again  on 
the  inside  and  look  at  it  intimately. 

What  has  happened  is,  in  general  terms,  this:  that  the 
work  of  the  college,  the  work  of  its  classrooms  and  labora- 
tories, has  become  the  merely  formal  and  compulsory  side 
of  its  life,  and  that  a  score  of  other  things,  lumped  under 
the  term  "undergraduate  activities,"  have  become  the 
vital,  spontaneous,  absorbing  realities  for  nine  out  of  every 
ten  men  who  go  to  college.  These  activities  embrace  social, 
athletic,  dramatic,  musical,  literary,  religious,  and  profes- 


98  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

sional  organizations  of  every  kind,  besides  many  organized 
for  mere  amusement  and  some,  of  great  use  and  dignity, 
which  seek  to  exercise  a  general  oversight  and  sensible 
direction  of  college  ways  and  customs.  Those  which  con- 
sume the  most  time,  are,  of  course,  the  athletic,  dramatic, 
and  musical  clubs,  whose  practises,  rehearsals,  games,  and 
performances  fill  the  term  time  and  the  brief  vacations 
alike.  But  it  is  the  social  organizations  into  which  the 
thought,  the  energy,  the  initiative,  the  enthusiasm  of  the 
largest  number  of  men  go,  and  go  in  lavish  measure. 

The  chief  of  these  social  organizations  are  residential 
families — fraternities,  clubs,  groups  of  housemates  of  one 
kind  or  another — in  which,  naturally  enough,  all  the  under- 
graduate interests,  all  the  undergraduate  activities  of  the 
college  have  their  vital  centre.  The  natural  history  of 
their  origin  and  development  is  very  interesting.  They 
grew  up  very  normally.  They  were  necessary  because  of 
what  the  college  did  not  do. 

Every  college  in  America,  at  any  rate  every  college  out- 
side a  city,  has  tried  to  provide  living-rooms  for  its  under- 
graduates, dormitories  in  which  they  can  live  and  sleep 
and  do  their  work  outside  the  classroom  and  the  labora- 
tory. Very  few  colleges  whose  numbers  have  grown  rap- 
idly have  been  able  to  supply  dormitories  enough  for  all 
their  students,  and  some  have  deliberately  abandoned  the 
attempt,  but  in  many  of  them  a  very  considerable  propor- 
tion of  the  undergraduates  live  on  the  campus,  in  college 
buildings.  It  is  a  very  wholesome  thing  that  they  should 
live  thus  imder  the  direct  influence  of  the  daily  life  of  such 
a  place  and,  at  least  in  legal  theory,  under  the  authority 
of  the  university  of  which  the  college  forms  a  principal 
part.  But  the  connection  between  the  dormitory  life  and 
the  real  life  of  the  university,  its  intellectual  tasks  and  disci- 


WHAT  IS  A  COLLEGE  FOR?  99 

plines,  its  outlook  upon  the  greater  world  of  thought  and 
action  which  lies  beyond,  far  beyond,  the  boundaries  of 
campus  and  classroom,  is  very  meagre  and  shadowy  indeed. 
It  is  hardly  more  than  atmospheric,  and  the  atmosphere 
is  very  attenuated,  perceptible  only  by  the  most  sensitive. 

Formerly,  in  more  primitive,  and  I  must  say  less  desirable, 
days  than  these  in  which  we  have  learned  the  full  vigor  of 
freedom,  college  tutors  and  proctors  lived  in  the  dormitories 
and  exercised  a  precarious  authority.  The  men  were  looked 
after  in  their  rooms  and  made  to  keep  hours  and  observe 
rules.  But  those  days  are  happily  gone  by.  The  system 
failed  of  its  object.  The  lads  were  mischievous  and  recalci- 
trant; those  placed  in  authority  over  them  generally  young 
and  unwise;  and  the  rules  were  odious  to  those  whom  they 
were  meant  to  restrain.  There  was  the  atmosphere  of  the 
boarding-school  about  the  buildings,  and  of  a  boarding- 
school  whose  pupils  had  outgrown  it.  Life  in  college  dormi- 
tories is  much  pleasanter  now  and  much  more  orderly, 
because  it  is  free  and  governed  only  by  college  opinion, 
which  is  a  real,  not  a  nominal,  master.  The  men  come  and 
go  as  they  please  and  have  little  consciousness  of  any  con- 
nection with  authority  or  with  the  governing  influences 
of  the  university  in  their  rooms,  except  that  the  university 
is  their  landlord  and  makes  rules  such  as  a  landlord  may 
make. 

Formerly,  in  more  primitive  and  less  pleasant  days,  the 
college  provided  a  refectory  or  ''commons"  where  all  under- 
graduates had  their  meals,  a  noisy  family.  It  was  part  of 
the  boarding-school  life;  and  the  average  undergraduate 
had  outgrown  it  as  consciously  as  he  had  outgrown  the 
futile  discipline  of  the  dormitory.  Now  nothing  of  the 
kind  is  attempted.  Here  and  there,  in  connection  with 
some  large  college  which  has  found  that  the  boarding- 


loo  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

houses  and  restaurants  of  the  town  have  been  furnishing 
poor  food  at  outrageous  prices  to  those  of  its  undergrad- 
uates who  could  not  otherwise  provide  for  themselves, 
will  be  found  a  great  "commons,"  at  which  hundreds  of 
men  take  their  meals,  amid  the  hurly-burly  of  numbers, 
without  elegance  or  much  comfort,  but  nevertheless  at  a 
well-spread  table  where  the  food  is  good  and  the  prices 
moderate.  The  undergraduate  may  use  it  or  not  as  he 
pleases.  It  is  merely  a  great  co-operative  boarding-place, 
bearing  not  even  a  family  resemblance  to  the  antique 
"commons."  It  is  one  of  the  conveniences  of  the  place. 
It  has  been  provided  by  the  university  authorities,  but 
it  might  have  been  provided  in  some  other  way  and  have 
been  quite  independent  of  them;  and  it  is  usually  imder 
undergraduate  management. 

Those  who  do  not  like  the  associations  or  the  fare  of 
such  a  place  provide  for  themselves  elsewhere,  in  clubs 
or  otherwise — generally  in  fraternity  houses.  At  most 
colleges  there  is  no  such  common  boarding-place,  and  all 
must  shift  for  themselves.  It  is  this  necessity  in  the  one 
case  and  desire  in  the  other  that  has  created  the  chief  com- 
plexity now  observable  in  college  life  and  which  has  been 
chiefly  instrumental  in  bringing  about  that  dissociation 
of  undergraduate  life  from  the  deeper  and  more  permanent 
influences  of  the  university  which  has  of  recent  years  become 
so  marked  and  so  significant. 

Fraternity  chapters  were  once — and  that  not  so  very 
long  ago — merely  groups  of  undergraduates  who  had  bound 
themselves  together  by  the  vows  of  various  secret  socie- 
ties which  had  spread  their  branches  among  the  colleges. 
They  had  their  fraternity  rooms,  their  places  of  meeting; 
they  were  distinguished  by  well-known  badges  and  formed 
little  coteries  distinguishable  enough  from  the  general  body 


WHAT  IS  A  COLLEGE  FOR?  loi 

of  undergraduates,  as  they  wished  to  be;  but  in  all  ordinary 
matters  they  shared  the  common  life  of  the  place.  The 
daily  experiences  of  the  college  life  they  shared  with  their 
fellows  of  all  kinds  and  all  connections  in  an  easy  democ- 
racy; their  contacts  were  the  common  contacts  of  the 
classroom  and  the  laboratory  not  only,  but  also  of  the 
boarding-house  table  and  of  all  the  usual  undergraduate 
resorts.  Members  of  the  same  fraternity  were  naturally 
enough  inclined  to  associate  chiefly  with  one  another,  and 
were  often,  much  too  often,  inclined,  in  matters  of  college 
"politics,"  to  act  as  a  unit  and  in  their  own  interest;  but 
they  did  not  live  separately.  They  did  not  hold  aloof  or 
constitute  themselves  separate  famihes,  Uving  apart  in 
their  own  houses,  in  privacy.  Now  all  that  is  changed. 
Every  fraternity  has  its  own  house,  equipped  as  a  com- 
plete home.  The  fraternity  houses  will  often  be  the  most 
interesting  and  the  most  beautiful  buildings  a  visitor  will 
be  shown  when  he  visits  the  college.  In  them  members 
take  all  their  meals,  in  them  they  spend  their  leisure  hours 
and  often  do  their  reading — for  each  house  has  its  Ubrary — 
and  in  them  many  of  the  members,  as  many  as  can  be 
accommodated,  have  their  sleeping-rooms  and  Uve,  because 
the  college  has  not  dormitories  enough  to  lodge  them  or 
because  they  prefer  lodging  outside  the  dormitories.  In 
colleges  where  there  are  no  fraternities,  clubs  of  one  sort 
or  another  take  their  places,  build  homes  of  their  own, 
enjoy  a  similar  privacy  and  separateness,  and  constitute 
the  centre  of  all  that  is  most  comfortable  and  interesting 
and  attractive  in  undergraduate  life. 

I  am  pointing  out  this  interesting  and  very  important 
development,  not  for  the  purpose  of  criticising  it,  but 
merely  to  explain  its  natural  history  and  the  far-reaching 
results  it  has  brought  about.     The  college  having  deter- 


I02     COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

mined,  wisely  enough,  some  generation  or  two  ago,  not  to 
be  any  longer  a  boarding-school,  has  resolved  itself  into  a 
mere  teaching  machine,  with  the  necessary  lecture-rooms 
and  laboratories  attached  and  sometimes  a  few  dormitories, 
which  it  regards  as  desirable  but  not  indispensable,  and 
has  resigned  into  the  hands  of  the  undergraduates  them- 
selves the  whole  management  of  their  life  outside  the  class- 
room; and  not  only  its  management  but  also  the  setting 
up  of  all  its  machinery  of  every  kind — as  much  as  they 
please — and  the  constitution  of  its  whole  environment,  so 
that  teachers  and  pupils  are  not  members  of  one  university 
body  but  constitute  two  bodies  sharply  distinguished — and 
the  undergraduate  body  the  more  highly  organized  and 
independent  of  the  two.  They  parley  with  one  another, 
but  they  do  not  live  with  one  another,  and  it  is  much 
easier  for  the  influence  of  the  highly  organized  and  very 
self-conscious  undergraduate  body  to  penetrate  the  faculty 
than  it  is  for  the  influence  of  the  faculty  to  permeate  the 
undergraduates. 

It  was  inevitable  it  should  turn  out  so  in  the  circum- 
stances. I  do  not  wonder  that  the  consequences  were  not 
foreseen  and  that  the  whole  development  has  crept  upon 
us  almost  unawares.  But  the  consequences  have  been  very 
important  and  very  far-reaching.  It  is  easy  now  to  see 
that  if  you  leave  undergraduates  entirely  to  themselves, 
to  organize  their  own  lives  while  in  college  as  they  please — 
and  organize  it  in  some  way  they  must  if  thus  cast  adrift — 
that  life,  and  not  the  deeper  interests  of  the  university, 
will  presently  dominate  their  thoughts,  their  imaginations, 
their  favorite  purposes.  And  not  only  that.  The  work  of 
administering  this  complex  life,  with  all  its  organizations 
and  independent  interests,  successfully  absorbs  the  energies, 
the  initiative,  the  planning  and  orginating  powers  of  the 


WHAT  IS  A  COLLEGE  FOR?  103 

best  men  among  the  undergraduates.  It  is  no  small  task. 
It  would  tax  and  absorb  older  men;  and  only  the  finer, 
more  spirited,  more  attractive,  more  original  and  effective 
men  are  fitted  for  it  or  equal  to  it,  where  leadership  goes 
by  gifts  of  personality  as  well  as  by  ability.  The  very  men 
the  teacher  most  desires  to  get  hold  of  and  to  enlist  in  some 
enterprise  of  the  mind,  the  very  men  it  would  most  reward 
him  to  instruct  and  whose  training  would  count  for  most 
in  leadership  outside  of  college,  in  the  country  at  large, 
and  for  the  promotion  of  every  interest  the  nation  has, 
the  natural  leaders  and  doers,  are  drawn  off  and  monopo- 
lized by  these  necessary  and  engaging  undergraduate  under- 
takings. The  born  leaders  and  managers  and  originators 
are  drafted  off  to  "run  the  college"  (it  is  in  fact  noth- 
ing less),  and  the  classroom,  the  laboratory,  the  studious 
conference  with  instructors  get  only  the  residuum  of  then- 
attention,  only  what  can  be  spared  of  their  energy — are 
secondary  matters  where  they  ought  to  come  first.  It  is 
the  organization  that  is  at  fault,  not  the  persons  who  enter 
into  it  and  are  moulded  by  it.  It  cannot  turn  out  other- 
wise in  the  circumstances.  The  side-shows  are  so  numerous, 
so  diverting — so  important,  if  you  will — that  they  have 
swallowed  up  the  circus,  and  those  who  perform  in  the 
main  tent  must  often  whistle  for  their  audiences,  discouraged 
and  humiliated. 

Such  is  college  life  nowadays,  and  such  its  relation  to 
college  work  and  the  all-important  intellectual  interests 
which  the  colleges  are  endowed  and  maintained  to  foster. 
I  need  not  stop  to  argue  that  the  main  purposes  of  educa- 
tion cannot  be  successfully  realized  under  such  conditions. 
I  need  not  stop  to  urge  that  the  college  was  not,  and  can 
never  be,  intended  for  the  uses  it  is  now  being  put  to.  A 
young  man  can  learn  to  become  the  manager  of  a  football 


I04     COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

team  or  of  a  residential  club,  the  leader  of  an  orchestra  or 
a  glee-club,  the  star  of  amateur  theatricals,  an  oarsman  or 
a  chess-player  without  putting  himself  to  the  trouble,  or  his 
parents  to  the  expense,  of  four  years  at  a  college.  These 
are  innocent  enough  things  for  him  to  do  and  to  learn, 
though  hardly  very  important  in  the  long  run;  they  may, 
for  all  I  know,  make  for  efficiency  in  some  of  the  simpler 
kinds  of  business ;  and  no  wise  man  who  knows  college  lads 
would  propose  to  shut  them  off  from  them  or  wish  to  dis- 
courage their  interest  in  them.  All  work  and  no  play  makes 
Jack  not  only  a  dull  boy  but  may  make  him  a  vicious  boy 
as  well.  Amusement,  athletic  games,  the  zest  of  contest 
and  competition,  the  challenge  there  is  in  most  college 
activities  to  the  instinct  of  initiative  and  the  gifts  of  leader- 
ship and  achievement — all  these  are  wholesome  means  of 
stimulation,  which  keep  young  men  from  going  stale  and 
turning  to  things  that  demoraHze.  But  they  should  not 
assume  the  front  of  the  stage,  where  more  serious  and  last- 
ing interests  are  to  be  served.  Men  cannot  be  prepared 
by  them  for  modern  life. 

The  college  is  meant  for  a  severer,  more  definite  disci- 
pline than  this:  a  discipline  which  will  fit  men  for  the  con- 
tests and  achievements  of  an  age  whose  every  task  is  con- 
ditioned upon  some  intelligent  and  effective  use  of  the  mind, 
upon  some  substantial  knowledge,  some  special  insight, 
some  trained  capacity,  some  penetration  which  comes  from 
study,  not  from  natural  readiness  or  mere  practical  ex- 
perience. 

The  side-shows  need  not  be  abolished.  They  need  not 
be  cast  out  or  even  discredited.  But  they  must  be  sub- 
ordinated. They  must  be  put  in  their  natural  place  as 
diversions,  and  ousted  from  their  present  dignity  and  pre- 
eminence as  occupations. 


WHAT  IS  A  COLLEGE  FOR?  105 

And  this  can  be  done  without  making  of  the  college  again 
a  boarding-school.  The  characteristic  of  the  boarding- 
school  is  that  its  pupils  are  in  all  things  in  tutelage,  are 
under  masters  at  every  turn  of  their  life,  must  do  as  they 
are  bidden,  not  in  the  performance  of  their  set  tasks  only, 
but  also  in  all  their  comings  and  goings.  It  is  this  char- 
acteristic that  made  it  impossible  and  undesirable  to  con- 
tinue the  life  of  the  boarding-school  into  the  college,  where 
it  is  necessary  that  the  pupil  should  begin  to  show  his  man- 
hood and  make  his  own  career.  No  one  who  knows  what 
wholesome  and  regulated  freedom  can  do  for  young  men 
ought  ever  to  wish  to  hale  them  back  to  the  days  of  childish 
discipline  and  restraint  of  which  the  college  of  our  grand- 
fathers was  typical.  But  a  new  discipline  is  desirable,  is 
absolutely  necessary,  if  the  college  is  to  be  recalled  to  its 
proper  purpose,  its  bounden  duty.  It  cannot  perform  its 
duty  as  it  is  now  organized. 

The  fundamental  thing  to  be  accomplished  in  the  new 
organization  is,  that,  instead  of  being  the  heterogeneous 
congeries  of  petty  organizations  it  now  is,  instead  of  being 
allowed  to  go  to  pieces  in  a  score  of  fractions  free  to  cast 
off  from  the  whole  as  they  please,  it  should  be  drawn  to- 
gether again  into  a  single  university  family  of  which  the 
teachers  shall  be  as  natural  and  as  intimate  members  as 
the  undergraduates.  The  ''life"  of  the  college  should  not 
be  separated  from  its  chief  purposes  and  most  essential 
objects,  should  not  be  contrasted  with  its  duties  and  in 
rivalry  with  them.  The  two  should  be  but  two  sides  of 
one  and  the  same  thing;  the  association  of  men,  young  and 
old,  for  serious  mental  endeavor  and  also,  in  the  intervals 
of  work,  for  every  wholesome  sport  and  diversion.  Under- 
graduate life  should  not  be  in  rivalry  and  contrast  with 
undergraduate  duties :  undergraduates  should  not  be  merely 


io6  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

in  attendance  upon  the  college,  but  parts  of  it  on  every 
side  of  its  life,  very  conscious  and  active  parts.  They 
should  consciously  live  its  whole  life — not  under  masters, 
as  in  school,  and  yet  associated  in  some  intimate  daily 
fashion  with  their  masters  in  learning:  so  that  learning 
may  not  seem  one  thing  and  life  another.  The  organiza- 
tions whose  objects  lie  outside  study  should  be  but  parts 
of  the  whole,  not  set  against  it,  but  included  within  it. 

All  this  can  be  accomplished  by  a  comparatively  simple 
change  of  organization  which  will  make  master  and  pupil 
members  of  the  same  free,  self-governed  family,  upon 
natural  terms  of  intimacy.  But  how  it  can  be  done  is  not 
our  present  interest.  That  is  another  story.  It  is  our 
present  purpose  merely  to  be  clear  what  a  college  is  for. 
That,  perhaps,  I  have  now  pointed  out  with  sufficient  ex- 
plicitness.  I  have  shown  the  incompatibility  of  the  present 
social  organization  of  our  colleges  with  the  realization  of 
that  purpose  only  to  add  emphasis  to  the  statement  of 
what  that  purpose  is.  Once  get  that  clearly  established 
in  the  mind  of  the  country,  and  the  means  of  realizing  it 
will  readily  and  quickly  enough  be  found.  The  object  of 
the  college  is  intellectual  discipline  and  moral  enlighten- 
ment, and  it  is  the  immediate  task  of  those  who  administer 
the  colleges  of  the  country  to  find  the  means  and  the  organi- 
zation by  which  that  object  can  be  attained.  Education 
is  a  process  and,  like  all  other  processes,  has  its  proper 
means  and  machinery.  It  does  not  consist  in  courses  of 
study.  It  consists  of  the  vital  assimilation  of  knowledge, 
and  the  mode  of  life,  for  the  college  as  for  the  individual, 
is  nine  parts  of  the  digestion. 


VII 

THE  TRAINING  OF  INTELLECT^ 
woodrow  wilson 

Mr.  Toastmaster,  Mr.  President,  and  Gentlemen: 
I  must  confess  to  you  that  I  came  here  with  very  serious 
thoughts  this  evening,  because  I  have  been  laboring  under 
the  conviction  for  a  long  time  that  the  object  of  a  university 
is  to  educate,  and  I  have  not  seen  the  universities  of  this 
country  achieving  any  remarkable  or  disturbing  success 
in  that  direction.  I  have  found  everywhere  the  note  which 
I  must  say  I  have  heard  sounded  once  or  twice  to-night — 
that  apology  for  the  intellectual  side  of  the  university. 
You  hear  it  at  all  universities.  Learning  is  on  the  defen- 
sive, is  actually  on  the  defensive,  among  college  men,  and 
they  are  being  asked  by  way  of  indulgence  to  bring  that 
also  into  the  circle  of  their  interests.  Is  it  not  time  we 
stopped  asking  indulgence  for  learning  and  proclaimed  its 
sovereignty?  Is  it  not  time  we  reminded  the  college  men 
of  this  country  that  they  have  no  right  to  any  distinctive 
place  in  any  community,  unless  they  can  show  it  by  in- 
tellectual achievement  ?  That  if  a  university  is  a  place  for 
distinction  at  all  it  must  be  distinguished  by  the  conquests 
of  the  mind?  I  for  my  part  tell  you  plainly  that  that  is 
my  motto,  that  I  have  entered  the  field  to  fight  for  that 
thesis,  and  that  for  that  thesis  only  do  I  care  to  fight. 

*  An  address  before  the  Phi  Beta  Kappa  Society  of  Yale  University 
in  1908.  Reprinted  through  the  courtesy  of  President  Woodrow  Wilson 
from  a  stenographic  report. 

107 


io8  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

The  toastmaster  of  the  evening  said,  and  said  truly,  that 
this  is  the  season  when,  for  me,  it  was  most  difficult  to 
break  away  from  regular  engagements  in  which  I  am  in- 
volved at  this  time  of  the  year.  But  when  I  was  invited 
to  the  Phi  Beta  Kappa  banquet  it  had  an  unusual  sound, 
and  I  felt  that  that  was  the  particular  kind  of  invitation 
which  it  was  my  duty  and  privilege  to  accept.  One  of  the 
problems  of  the  American  university  now  is  how,  among  a 
great  many  other  competing  interests,  to  give  places  of 
distinction  to  men  who  want  places  of  distinction  in  the 
classroom.  Why  don't  we  give  you  men  the  Y  here  and 
the  P  at  Princeton,  because,  after  all,  you  have  done  the 
particular  thing  which  distinguishes  Yale?  Not  that  these 
other  things  are  not  worth  doing,  but  they  may  be  done 
anywhere.  They  may  be  done  in  athletic  clubs  where  there 
is  no  study,  but  this  thing  can  be  done  only  here.  This  is 
the  distinctive  mark  of  the  place. 

A  good  many  years  ago,  just  two  weeks  before  the  mid- 
year examinations,  the  faculty  of  Princeton  was  foolish 
enough  to  permit  a  very  unwise  evangelist  to  come  to  the 
place  and  to  upset  the  town.  And  while  an  assisting  under- 
graduate was  going  from  room  to  room  one  undergraduate 
secured  his  door  and  put  this  notice  out:  "I  am  a  Christian 
and  am  studying  for  examinations."  Now  I  want  to  say 
that  that  is  exactly  what  a  Christian  undergraduate  would 
be  doing  at  that  time  of  the  year.  He  would  not  be  at- 
tending religious  meetings  no  matter  how  beneficial  it 
would  be  to  him.  He  would  be  studying  for  examinations 
not  merely  for  the  purpose  of  passing  them,  but  from  his 
sense  of  duty. 

We  get  a  good  many  men  at  Princeton  from  certain 
secondary  schools  who  say  a  great  deal  about  their  earnest 
desire  to  cultivate  character  among  our  students,  and  I 


THE  TRAINING  OF  INTELLECT  109 

hear  a  great  deal  about  character  being  the  object  of  educa- 
tion. I  take  leave  to  believe  that  a  man  who  cultivates 
his  character  consciously  will  cultivate  nothing  except  what 
will  make  him  intolerable  to  his  fellow  men.  If  your 
object  in  life  is  to  make  a  fine  fellow  of  yourself,  you  will 
not  succeed,  and  you  will  not  be  acceptable  to  really  fine 
fellows.  Character,  gentlemen,  is  a  by-product.  It  comes, 
whether  you  will  or  not,  as  a  consequence  of  a  life  devoted 
to  the  nearest  duty,  and  the  place  in  which  character  would 
be  cultivated,  if  it  be  a  place  of  study,  is  a  place  where  study 
is  the  object  and  character  the  result. 

Not  long  ago  a  gentleman  approached  me  in  great  excite- 
ment just  after  the  entrance  examinations.  He  said  we  had 
made  a  great  mistake  in  not  taking  so  and  so  from  a  certain 
school  which  he  named.  *'But,"  I  said,  "he  did  not  pass 
the  entrance  examinations."  And  he  went  over  the  boy's 
moral  excellencies  again.  "Pardon  me,"  I  said,  "you  do 
not  vmderstand.  He  did  not  pass  the  entrance  examina- 
tions. Now,"  I  said,  "I  want  you  to  understand  that  if 
the  angel  Gabriel  appUed  for  admission  to  Princeton  Uni- 
versity and  could  not  pass  the  entrance  examinations,  he 
would  not  be  admitted.  He  would  be  wasting  his  time." 
It  seemed  a  new  idea  to  him.  This  boy  had  come  from  a 
school  which  cultivated  character,  and  he  was  a  nice, 
lovable  fellow  with  a  presentable  character.  Therefore, 
he  ought  to  be  admitted  to  any  university.  I  fail  to  see  it 
from  this  point  of  view,  for  a  university  is  an  institution 
of  purpose.  We  have  in  some  previous  years  had  pity  for 
young  gentlemen  who  were  not  sufficiently  acquainted  with 
the  elements  of  a  preparatory  course.  They  have  been 
dropped  at  the  examinations,  and  I  have  always  felt  that 
we  have  been  guilty  of  an  offense,  and  have  made  their 
parents  spend  money  to  no  avail  and  the  youngsters  spend 


no  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

their  time  to  no  avail.  And  so  I  think  that  all  university 
men  ought  to  rouse  themselves  now  and  understand  what 
is  the  object  of  a  university.  The  object  of  a  university 
is  intellect;  as  a  university  its  only  object  is  intellect.  As 
a  body  of  young  men  there  ought  to  be  other  things,  there 
ought  to  be  diversions  to  release  them  from  the  constant 
strain  of  effort,  there  ought  to  be  things  that  gladden  the 
heart  and  moments  of  leisure,  but  as  a  imiversity  the  only 
object  is  intellect. 

The  reason  why  I  chose  the  subject  that  I  am  permitted 
to  speak  upon  to-night — the  function  of  scholarship — was 
that  I  wanted  to  point  out  the  function  of  scholarship  not 
merely  in  the  university,  but  in  the  nation.  In  a  country 
constituted  as  ours  is,  the  relation  in  which  education  stands 
is  a  very  important  one.  Our  whole  theory  has  been  based 
upon  an  enlightened  citizenship  and  therefore  the  fimction 
of  scholarship  must  be  for  the  nation  as  well  as  for  the  uni- 
versity itself.  I  mean  the  function  of  such  scholarship  as 
undergraduates  get.  That  is  not  a  violent  amount  in  any 
case.  You  cannot  make  a  scholar  of  a  man  except  by  some 
largeness  of  Providence  in  his  make-up,  by  the  time  he  is 
twenty-one  or  twenty-two  years  of  age.  There  have  been 
gentlemen  who  have  made  a  reputation  by  twenty-one  or 
twenty-two,  but  it  is  generally  in  some  little  province  of 
knowledge,  so  small  that  a  small  effort  can  conquer  it. 
You  do  not  make  scholars  by  that  time,  you  do  not  often 
make  scholars  by  seventy  that  are  worth  boasting  of.  The 
process  of  scholarship,  so  far  as  the  real  scholar  is  concerned, 
is  an  unending  process,  and  knowledge  is  pushed  forward 
only  a  very  little  by  his  best  efforts.  And  it  is  evident,  of 
course,  that  the  most  you  can  contribute  to  a  man  in  his 
undergraduate  years  is  not  equipment  in  the  exact  knowl- 
edge which  is  characteristic  of  the  scholar,  but  an  inspira- 


THE  TRAINING  OF  INTELLECT  iii 

tion  of  the  spirit  of  scholarship.  The  most  that  you  can 
give  a  youngster  is  the  spirit  of  the  scholar. 

Now,  the  spirit  of  the  scholar  in  a  country  like  ours  must 
be  a  spirit  related  to  the  national  life.  It  cannot,  therefore, 
be  a  spirit  of  pedantry.  I  suppose  that  this  is  a  suflScient 
working  conception  of  pedantry  to  say  that  it  is  knowledge 
divorced  from  Ufe.  It  is  knowledge  so  closeted,  so  dese- 
crated, so  stripped  of  the  significances  of  life  itself,  that  it 
is  a  thing  apart  and  not  connected  with  the  vital  processes 
in  the  world  about  us. 

There  is  a  great  place  in  every  nation  for  the  spirit  of 
scholarship,  and  it  seems  to  me  that  there  never  was  a  time 
when  the  spirit  of  scholarship  was  more  needed  in  a£fairs 
than  it  is  in  this  country  at  this  time. 

We  are  thinking  just  now  with  our  emotions  and  not  with 
our  minds,  we  are  moved  by  impulse  and  not  by  judgment. 
We  are  drawing  away  from  things  with  blind  antipathy. 
The  spirit  of  knowledge  is  that  you  must  base  your  con- 
clusions on  adequate  grounds.  Make  sure  that  you  are 
going  to  the  real  sources  of  knowledge,  discovering  what 
the  real  facts  are  before  you  move  forward  to  the  next 
process,  which  is  the  process  of  clear  thinking.  By  clear 
thinking  I  do  not  mean  logical  thinking.  I  do  not  mean 
that  life  is  based  upon  any  logical  system  whatever.  Life 
is  essentially  illogical.  The  world  is  governed  now  by  a 
tumultuous  sea  of  commonalities  made  up  of  passions,  and 
we  should  pray  God  that  the  good  passions  should  out- 
vote the  bad  passions.  But  the  movement  of  impulse,  of 
motive,  is  the  stuff  of  passion,  and  therefore  clear  thinking 
about  life  is  not  logical,  symmetrical  thinking,  but  it  is 
interpretative  thinking,  thinking  that  sees  the  secret  motive 
of  things,  thinking  that  penetrates  deepest  places  where 
are  the  pulses  of  life. 


112     COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

Now  scholarship  ought  to  lay  these  impulses  bare  just 
as  the  physician  can  lay  bare  the  seat  of  life  in  our  bodies. 
That  is  not  scholarship  which  goes  to  work  upon  the  mere 
formal  pedantry  of  logical  reasoning,  but  that  is  scholar- 
ship which  searches  for  the  heart  of  a  man.  The  spirit  of 
scholarship  gives  us  catholicity  of  thinking,  the  readiness 
to  understand  that  there  will  constantly  swing  into  our 
ken  new  items  not  dreamed  of  in  our  systems  of  philosophy, 
not  simply  to  draw  our  conclusions  from  the  data  that  we 
have  had,  but  that  all  this  is  under  constant  mutation,  and 
that  therefore  new  phases  of  life  will  come  upon  us  and  a 
new  adjustment  of  our  conclusions  will  be  necessary.  Our 
thinking  must  be  detached  and  disinterested  thinking. 

The  particular  objection  that  I  have  to  the  undergraduate 
forming  his  course  of  study  on  his  future  profession  is  this — 
that  from  start  to  finish,  from  the  time  he  enters  the  uni- 
versity until  he  finishes  his  career,  his  thought  will  be  cen- 
tred upon  particular  interests.  He  will  be  immersed  in 
the  things  that  touch  his  profit  and  loss,  and  a  man  is  not 
free  to  think  inside  that  territory.  If  his  bread  and  butter 
is  going  to  be  affected,  if  he  is  always  thinking  in  the  terms 
of  his  own  profession  he  is  not  thinking  for  the  nation.  He 
is  thinking  for  himself,  and  whether  he  be  conscious  of  it 
or  not,  he  can  never  throw  these  trammels  off.  He  will 
only  think  as  a  doctor,  or  a  lawyer,  or  a  banker.  He  will 
not  be  free  in  the  world  of  knowledge  and  in  the  circle  of 
interests  which  make  up  the  great  citizenship  of  the  coun- 
try. It  is  necessary  that  the  spirit  of  scholarship  should 
be  a  detached,  disinterested  spirit,  not  immersed  in  a  partic- 
ular interest.  That  is  the  function  of  scholarship  in  a  coun- 
try like  ours,  to  supply  not  heat,  but  light,  to  suffuse  things 
with  the  calm  radiance  of  reason,  to  see  to  it  that  men  do 
not  act  hastily,  but  that  they  act  considerately,  that  they 


THE  TRAINING  OF  INTELLECT  113 

obey  the  truth  whether  they  know  it  or  not.  The  fault  of 
our  age  is  the  fault  of  hasty  action,  of  premature  judgments, 
of  a  preference  for  ill-considered  action  over  no  action  at 
all.  Men  who  insist  upon  standing  still  and  doing  a  little 
thinking  before  they  do  any  acting  are  called  reactionaries. 
They  want  actually  to  react  to  a  state  in  which  they  can 
be  allowed  to  think.  They  want  for  a  little  while  to  with- 
draw from  the  turmoil  of  party  controversy  and  see  where 
they  stand  before  they  commit  themselves  and  their  coun- 
try to  action  from  which  it  may  not  be  possible  to  withdraw. 

The  whole  fault  of  the  modern  age  is  that  it  applies  to 
everything  a  false  standard  of  eflEiciency.  Efl&ciency  with 
us  is  accomplishment,  whether  the  accomplishment  be  by 
just  and  well-considered  means  or  not;  and  this  standard 
of  achievement  it  is  that  is  debasing  the  morals  of  our  age, 
the  intellectual  morals  of  our  age.  We  do  not  stop  to  do 
things  thoroughly;  we  do  not  stop  to  know  why  we  do 
things.  We  see  an  error  and  we  hastily  correct  it  by  a 
greater  error;  and  then  go  on  to  cry  that  the  age  is  corrupt. 

And  so  it  is,  gentlemen,  that  I  try  to  join  the  function 
of  the  university  with  the  great  function  of  the  national 
life.  The  life  of  this  country  is  going  to  be  revolutionized 
and  purified  only  when  the  universities  of  this  country 
wake  up  to  the  fact  that  their  only  reason  for  existing  is 
intellect,  that  the  objects  that  I  have  set  forth,  so  far  as 
undergraduate  life  is  concerned,  are  the  only  legitimate 
objects.  And  every  man  should  crave  for  his  university 
primacy  in  these  things,  primacy  in  other  things  also  if 
they  may  be  brought  in  without  enmity  to  it,  but  the 
sacrifice  of  everything  that  stands  in  the  way  of  that. 

For  my  part,  I  do  not  believe  that  it  is  athleticism  which 
stands  in  the  way.  Athletics  have  been  associated  with 
the  achievements  of  the  mind  in  many  a  successful  civiliza- 


114  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

tion.  There  is  no  difficulty  in  uniting  vigor  of  body  with 
achievement  of  mind,  but  there  is  a  good  deal  of  difficulty 
in  uniting  the  achievement  of  the  mind  with  a  thousand 
distracting  social  influences,  which  take  up  all  our  ambi- 
tions, which  absorb  all  our  thoughts,  which  lead  to  all  our 
arrangements  of  life,  and  then  leave  the  imiversity  authori- 
ties the  residuum  of  our  attention,  after  we  are  through 
with  the  things  that  we  are  interested  in.  We  absolutely 
changed  the  whole  course  of  study  at  Princeton  and  revolu- 
tionized the  methods  of  instruction  without  rousing  a  ripple 
on  the  surface  of  the  alumni.  They  said  those  things  are 
intellectual,  they  were  our  business.  But  just  as  soon  as  we 
thought  to  touch  the  social  part  of  the  university,  there 
was  not  only  a  ripple,  but  the  whole  body  was  torn  to  its 
depths.  We  had  touched  the  real  things.  These  lay  in 
triumphal  competition  with  the  province  of  the  mind,  and 
men's  attention  was  so  absolutely  absorbed  in  these  things 
that  it  was  impossible  for  us  to  get  their  interest  enlisted 
on  the  real  undertakings  of  the  university  itself. 

Now  that  is  true  of  every  university  that  I  know  any- 
thing about  in  this  country,  and  if  the  faculties  in  this 
country  want  to  recapture  the  ground  that  they  have  lost, 
they  must  begin  pretty  soon,  and  they  must  go  into  the 
battle  with  their  bridges  burned  behind  them  so  that  it 
will  be  of  no  avail  to  retreat.  If  I  had  a  voice  to  which 
the  university  men  of  this  country  might  listen,  that  is 
the  endeavor  to  which  my  ambition  would  lead  me  to  call. 


VIII 

UNIVERSITY  ATHLETICS  I 

SIMON  NEWCOMB 

"The  greatest  nation  is  the  one  that  can  send  most  men 
to  the  top  of  the  Matterhorn."  This  reply  to  the  question 
which  we  should  deem  the  greatest  nation  was  probably 
regarded  by  the  guests  who  heard  it  as  a  euphonious  paradox 
rather  than  a  serious  opinion.  And  yet,  if  not  taken  too 
literally,  it  suggests  a  direction  in  which  progress  is  now 
tending.  With  the  decay  of  asceticism,  naturally  com- 
mences the  growth  of  the  opposite  idea,  embodied  in  the 
familiar  phrases,  "muscular  Christianity"  and  "the  physi- 
cal basis  of  life."  This  idea  is  supported  by  modern  physio- 
logical investigation,  which  brings  out  in  clear  relief  that 
physical  health  and  vigor  are  qualities  to  be  cultivated, 
not  merely  from  a  selj&sh  desire  for  amusement  and  to 
secure  freedom  from  pain,  but  as  a  means  toward  the  at- 
tainment of  our  highest  ethical  ends.  Experience  shows 
the  general  rule  to  be  that  the  physically  lazy  man  is  not 
apt  to  be  mentally  active,  though  the  mentally  active  man 
may  be  so  absorbed  in  his  work  as  to  have  Uttle  time  or 
energy  to  spend  in  outdoor  exercise.  The  names  of  the 
few  hundred  persons  who  since  Whymper's  memorable 
and  disastrous  adventure  have  ascended  the  Matterhorn 
would  be  more  than  a  miscellaneous  list  of  people  endowed 
with  bodily  vigor  and  a  propensity  to  climb.    They  would 

'  Reprinted  through  the  courtesy  of  The  North  American  Review. 


ii6  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

include  a  President  of  the  United  States,  a  goodly  list  of 
leaders  in  science  and  literature,  and  more  than  a  due  pro- 
portion of  men  who  have  made  their  mark  in  various  fields 
of  effort.  The  general  trend  of  evidence  recently  collected 
by  students  of  hygiene  is  toward  the  view  that  there  is 
something  toxic  in  the  air  of  even  the  best  houses,  and 
that  he  who  would  command  the  best  measure  of  physical 
health  must,  so  far  as  he  can,  live  and  sleep  in  the  open  air. 
He  cannot  do  this  well  unless  he  is  in  motion  during  most 
of  his  waking  hours;  and  in  this  we  have  a  completely 
rational  incentive  to  bodily  exercise. 

Having  said  this  by  way  of  preface,  let  us  proceed  to  our 
task.  We  wish  to  bring  about  peace  and  amity  between 
lusty  Ajax,  who  attends  all  the  football  games,  admires 
the  manly  qualities  there  displayed,  and  sees  in  the  actors 
the  men  who  are  to  do  the  real  work  of  the  world — and 
wise  Minerva,  who  has  learned  that  brain  and  not  muscle 
does  the  world's  work,  and  that  the  best  physical  health 
and  mental  vigor  are  quite  compatible  with  inability  to 
climb  a  hill  or  fight  a  burglar.  We  fancy  that  the  goddess 
is  already  beginning  to  ply  us  with  questions,  whether  we 
are  not  confounding  causes  and  effect,  whether  men  do  not 
play  football  because  they  are  already  strong  and  active, 
rather  than  the  reverse,  whether  the  qualities  they  display 
in  the  game  are  really  those  most  required  by  modern 
society,  and  whether  Whymper  would  not  have  done  as 
good  work,  and  Leslie  Stephen  become  as  effective  a  writer, 
if  neither  of  them  had  ever  seen  a  mountain.  But,  with 
all  the  deference  due  her  sex,  we  shall  ask  her  to  postpone 
her  questions  and  remain  a  spectator  while  Ajax  has  his 
innings. 

The  world,  he  tells  us,  has  no  need  of  the  weakling,  who 
shrinks  from  personal  combat  and   is  disturbed  by  the 


UNIVERSITY  ATHLETICS  117 

fear  of  a  little  physical  pain  and  discomfort.  The  man 
who  in  the  future  is  to  win  the  admiration  and  command 
the  respect  of  his  fellow  men  by  his  works  must  possess 
the  robust  qualities  of  the  body,  as  well  as  the  finer  quali- 
ties of  the  intellect.  In  no  way  are  such  qualities  more 
readily  acquired  and  displayed  than  in  the  roughest  of  the 
games  played  by  university  students  in  intercollegiate 
contests.  The  large  majority  of  men  who  are  to  be  leaders 
in  this  and  the  next  generation  will  be  trained  at  colleges 
and  in  universities.  It  is  essential  to  their  efficiency  that 
they  shall  not  be  mere  scholars  and  book-worms,  but  physi- 
cally strong  and  courageous,  ready  to  sacrifice  ease  and 
comfort  to  the  exigencies  of  their  work.  Therefore,  let 
them  engage  in  manly  contests,  the  rougher  the  better. 

Now,  dear  Ajax,  I  am  deUghted  that  you  take  this  ground. 
I  take  much  the  same  view  as  you  do,  though  I  might  state 
our  case  a  little  differently.  We  wish  the  men  of  our  nation 
to  be  capable  of  carrying  on  great  works.  The  best  and 
most  effective  work  cannot  be  done  unless  the  doer  enjoys 
good  physical  health.  Human  experience,  as  a  whole, 
shows  that  life  and  motion  in  the  open  air  are  among  the 
agents  most  conducive  to  vigor.  Let  us,  therefore,  culti- 
vate this  life  in  the  nation  at  large,  especially  in  that  frac- 
tion of  it  which  is  to  take  the  lead.  Open-air  games  are 
an  excellent  means  toward  this  end,  therefore  we  wish  to 
encourage  them.  I  look  for  your  cordial  assent  to  my  state- 
ment of  the  problem  before  us,  which  is  to  devise  that 
course  of  action  best  adapted  to  imbue  our  intellectual 
young  men  with  a  warm  love  for  the  green  fields,  the  blue 
sky,  and  the  varied  beauties  of  nature  and  such  a  fondness 
of  physical  movement  that  they  shall  look  forward  with 
pleasure  many  months  in  advance  to  the  moment  when 
they  can  escape  from  their  daily  routine  to  engage  in 


ii8  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

country  walking  or  in  mountain  climbing.  Let  us  now 
put  our  heads  together  and  map  out  the  course  of  action 
best  adapted  to  our  purpose.  To  do  this  we  must  begin 
with  a  survey  of  the  situation,  and  study  the  problem  which 
it  ofifers  from  our  point  of  view. 

A  body  of  several  hundred  young  men  enter  college. 
The  first  step  in  deciding  how  to  secure  them  the  full 
measure  of  the  manly  qualities  we  admire  will  be  to  classify 
them  as  to  their  present  possession  of  such  quaUties.  We 
divide  them  into  three  groups.  At  the  head  will  be  the 
vigorous  and  courageous  young  men,  already  possessing 
in  the  highest  degree  the  manly  quahties  we  desire  to 
cultivate.  Born  of  strong  and  healthy  parents,  they  have 
loved  the  outdoor  air  from  childhood,  and  have  played 
on  the  teams  of  their  respective  schools  till  they  have 
reached  the  college  age.  If  any  of  us  can  claim  them  as 
children  or  grandchildren,  we  are  glad  to  do  so. 

The  second  and  much  larger  group  will  comprise  a  middle 
class,  possessing  fair  or  excellent  health  and  a  due  amount 
of  every  manly  quaUty,  but  taking  no  special  pleasure  in 
bestowing  their  car-fares  upon  the  shoemaker,  more  in- 
terested in  study  than  in  sport  and  fonder  of  seeing  others 
lead  the  strenuous  life  than  of  leading  it  themselves. 

The  third  will  take  in  the  weaklings;  the  men  who  shrink 
from  strenuous  physical  effort,  are  not  strong  enough  to 
engage  in  a  rough-and-tumble  game,  fear  they  would  get 
hurt  if  they  tried,  will  not  incur  even  a  slight  risk  of  a  few 
bruises  without  some  more  serious  reason  than  love  of 
excitement,  deem  it  the  part  of  wisdom  to  go  through  life 
with  a  minimum  of  physical  pain,  and  prefer  a  sphere  of 
activity  in  which  the  sacrifice  of  comfort  will  be  as  small 
as  possible.  Perhaps  many  of  them  watch  the  games  with 
as  much  eagerness  as  any  of  their  fellows  and  hurrah  for 


UNIVERSITY  ATHLETICS  119 

their  teams  as  loudly  as  their  weak  lungs  will  permit.  But 
this  adds  little  to  their  physical  vigor. 

Having  these  three  groups  before  us,  the  problem  is  so 
to  deal  with  and  train  them  that,  taken  as  a  whole,  the  best 
results  at  which  we  aim  shall  be  reached.  Keeping  in  our 
mind's  eye  the  respective  needs  of  the  groups,  our  pohcy 
is  obvious.  The  first  group  already  possesses,  in  as  high 
a  degree  as  society  demands,  all  the  manly  quaUties  we 
wish.  It  goes  without  saying  that  we  need  not  greatly 
concern  ourselves  with  it.  The  second  admits  of  improve- 
ment and  may  therefore  command  a  share  of  our  atten- 
tion. But  it  is  the  third  group  which  stands  most  urgently 
in  need  of  our  help  and  encouragement.  One  of  the  strong- 
est reasons  for  devoting  especial  attention  to  it  is  that  the 
conditions  of  modern  society  are  extremely  favorable  to 
its  increase.  What  would  we  do  to-day  if,  like  our  fore- 
fathers, we  had  no  street-cars?  An  evolutionary  philos- 
opher has  predicted  that  at  some  future  epoch  the  human 
being  will  be  an  animal  unable  to  use  his  legs  except  to 
mount  into  an  automobile  or  incapable  of  chewing  with 
his  own  teeth.  We  desire  to  postpone  this  epoch,  if  pos- 
sible, to  some  future  geological  age.  To  do  this,  we  must 
evidently  deal  with  the  group  of  university  students  that 
is  in  most  danger  of  being  the  progenitors  of  such  an  en- 
feebled race.  In  a  word,  athletic  exercises  are  to  be  pro- 
moted with  most  care  and  attention  in  the  third  group, 
and  with  less  in  the  second,  while  the  first  may  be  safely 
left  to  take  care  of  itself.  The  ideal  stage  of  intercollegiate 
athletics  is,  then,  one  in  which  the  teams  are  made  up  of 
the  weakest  men  in  college,  or  at  least  those  who  were 
weakest  to  begin  with  but  have  gained  strength  from  the 
training  which  the  college  has  afforded  them. 

The  contrast  of  the  policy  thus  suggested  with  that  at 


I20     COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

present  pursued  is  so  strong  that  the  proposition  may  seem 
as  paradoxical  as  that  of  measuring  national  greatness  by- 
ability  in  mountain  climbing.  No  one  goes  to  see  a  game 
between  men  who  have  not  reached  the  highest  grade  of 
vigor,  no  one  even  invites  them  upon  a  team.  Even  the 
second  group  is  left  to  take  care  of  itself,  its  members 
being  promoted  into  the  first  group  if  they  choose  to  make 
the  necessary  effort.  It  is  to  the  first  that  public  attention 
is  entirely  directed.  It  alone  wins  honors  and  brings  out 
applause.  That  is  to  say,  we  have  in  actual  operation  a 
system  which  trains  those  who  do  not  need  training,  and 
leaves  those  who  do  need  it  to  take  care  of  themselves, 
without  even  offering  them  an  incentive  to  improvement. 
The  worst  outcome  of  the  policy  is  not  merely  waste  of 
effort  through  exerting  it  where  it  is  not  needed,  but  the 
actual  discouragement  of  effort  among  those  who  most 
need  to  make  it.  If  the  discouragement  is  not  a  positive 
one,  it  is  at  least  a  negative  factor  in  that  it  fails  to  offer 
encouragement  to  the  weak  to  become  strong. 

That  a  course  of  action  seemingly  adapted  to  the  at- 
tainment of  an  end  should  really  take  us  further  from  it  is 
no  new  experience  in  human  affairs.  The  question  whether 
this  is  true  of  our  present  system  of  intercollegiate  athletics 
is  so  important  as  to  merit  an  inquiry  how  far  the  conten- 
tion can  be  established  by  independent  evidence,  especially 
by  the  opinions  of  impartial  observers.  We  have  two 
sources  of  such  opinions,  the  utterances  of  officers  of  our 
universities  who  have  observed  the  effect  of  athletics  upon 
their  students  and  the  broader  experience  of  nations.  So 
far  as  the  writer's  observation  has  extended,  no  college  or 
university  authority  has  claimed,  as  the  result  of  his  own 
experience,  that  intercollegiate  athletic  contests  stimulate 
a  personal  desire  for  exercise  among  that  group  of  students 


UNIVERSITY  ATHLETICS  121 

who  most  need  it.  For  the  most  part,  the  opinions  not  only 
of  administrative  officers,  but  even  of  teachers  of  athletics, 
are  toward  the  opposite  view.  It  is  conceded,  indeed,  that 
almost  the  entire  body  of  students,  even  those  least  dis- 
posed to  go  through  a  course  of  physical  training  them- 
selves, are  much  interested  in  the  success  of  their  college 
team.  They  enjoy  a  healthful  diversion  in  witnessing  the 
games.  A  minority  say  that  they  enjoy  a  certain  benefit 
from  this  stimulus,  although  the  nature  of  the  benefit  is 
not  clearly  stated.  But  no  one  claims  to  have  seen  evidence 
that  students  in  the  group  most  in  need  of  exercise  have 
been  led  to  take  it  in  consequence  of  the  athletic  contests 
of  their  fellows.  So  far  as  experience  has  gone,  the  opinions 
based  on  the  best  information  tend  toward  the  view  that 
the  real  wants  of  the  weaker  group  have  been  lost  from  sight 
in  the  excitement  of  preparing  for  and  witnessing  contests 
among  the  stronger  ones. 

We  now  invite  the  reader  to  take  a  broader  view  of  the 
general  question  how  far  athletic  contests  between  small 
groups  of  men  stimulate  the  love  of  outdoor  exercise  in  a 
community.  The  nation  which  in  recent  times  has  been 
most  actively  interested  in  such  contests  is,  no  doubt,  the 
English.  When  physical  training  was  introduced  into  our 
own  institutions  of  learning,  our  schools  borrowed  their 
ideas  from  Rugby  and  other  English  sources,  and  our 
universities  borrowed  from  Oxford  and  Cambridge.  That 
athletic  contests  were  the  product  of  a  healthy  love  of  out- 
door life  among  the  English  people,  and  not  the  cause  of 
that  love,  must  be  carefully  borne  in  mind.  The  result  is 
that  to-day  the  two  English-speaking  countries  are  the 
foremost  in  athletic  contests.  On  the  other  hand,  the  semi- 
professional  university  athletic  teams,  so  common  in  our 
country  and,  in  a  less  degree,  in  England,  are,  so  far  as  the 


122  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

writer  is  aware,  unknown  in  Germany.  It  will  hardly  be 
maintained  that  the  silly  practise  of  duelling,  which  has 
not  wholly  ceased  in  some  of  the  German  universities,  is 
in  any  way  a  substitute  for  intercollegiate  athletic  games. 
In  the  common  schools  of  the  nation,  physical  training  is 
carefully  looked  after,  but  the  system  is  not  ours.  Those 
who  need  the  training  receive  more  careful  attention  and 
encouragement  than  those  who  do  not.  The  whole  system 
is  devised  and  conducted  on  a  rational  basis,  the  end  being 
the  physical  development  of  the  individual  and  not  the 
promotion  of  contests  or  other  games. 

It  is  of  interest  to  inquire  what  the  results  of  the  systems 
have  been  in  the  case  of  the  nations  in  question.  One  re- 
sult to  which  we  invite  attention  may  be  only  a  straw,  but 
it  seems  very  significant.  The  fondness  of  the  English 
for  feats  of  physical  endurance  in  mounting  diflScult  Alpine 
peaks  has  led  us  to  regard  Switzerland  as  the  especial  play- 
ground of  their  nation.  If  this  was  ever  true,  it  is  not  true 
to-day.  The  fact  is  that  a  walker  over  a  snow-covered 
Alpine  pass  may  now  safely  use  the  German  language  in 
exchanging  greetings  with  and  asking  the  way  of  a  fellow 
pedestrian,  with  confidence  that  he  will  not  be  going  astray 
one  time  in  five.  But,  when  he  reaches  the  luxurious 
hotels  of  the  valley,  he  may  with  equal  confidence  use  the 
English  language  in  addressing  every  fellow  guest  he  meets. 
That  the  two  systems  have  produced  these  two  distinctly 
opposite  effects  is  an  actual  fact  of  personal  observation. 
That  the  professional  climber  of  lofty  snow-peaks  may  be 
found  speaking  English  as  often  as  German,  I  cannot  either 
afl&rm  or  deny.  But,  if  such  is  the  case,  it  will  only  strengthen 
our  contention  that  the  semiprofessional  physical  training 
to  which  the  English  and  Americans  are  addicted  benefits 
the  few  at  the  expense  of  the  many  who  most  need  it. 


UNIVERSITY  ATHLETICS  123 

If  the  conclusion  to  which  a  careful  examination  of  the 
case  seems  to  point  is  really  correct,  the  ideal  athletic 
contest  would  be  one  between  teams  whose  members  were 
chosen  from  men  originally  of  the  weakest  class.  It  may 
well  be  asked  whether  an  argument  in  favor  of  such  a  system 
is  not  futile.  We  know  that  no  one  but  the  players  them- 
selves would  take  any  interest  in  such  games.  Then  why 
argue  the  point  ?  We  do  not  argue  it  further  than  to  show 
that  intercollegiate  contests  are  worse  than  useless.  If 
we  admit  that  the  policy  which  supports  the  system  fails 
of  its  object  because  it  stimulates  effort  where  no  stimulus 
is  necessary,  and  discourages  effort  where  it  is  needful,  and 
if,  on  the  other  hand,  the  only  reform  that  will  lead  to  our 
end  is  so  impracticable  as  to  seem  ridiculous,  the  conclusion 
is  obvious.  Physical  development  on  the  part  of  our  stu- 
dents will  be  best  promoted  by  entirely  abandoning  inter- 
collegiate contests  and  making  games  of  strength  a  purely 
local  and  personal  affair.  In  other  words,  we  must  train 
the  body  on  the  same  system  as  we  do  the  mind. 

Having  thus  arranged,  as  we  hope,  a  modus  vivendi  with 
Ajax  by  showing  how  his  end  can  best  be  attained,  let 
Minerva  state  her  case.  The  development  of  intercol- 
legiate athletics  during  the  past  twenty  years  has  been  so 
striking  that  the  thoughtful  man  will  inquire  into  the  in- 
centive that  lies  behind  it.  It  may  well  be  that,  in  the  be- 
ginning, this  came  from  a  growing  conviction  of  the  benefits 
of  physical  training  to  intellectual  workers.  But  it  cannot 
be  claimed  that  a  rational  conviction  of  this  truth  has  been 
a  factor  in  the  present  expansion  of  the  system.  To  begin 
with  the  first  agent:  why  does  the  vigorous  and  healthy 
student  of  Harvard  or  Yale  join  the  athletic  team  of  his 
institution  and  add  to  the  labor  of  his  studies  the  large 
outlay  of  brain  and  nerve  power  required  by  a  course  of 


124  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

physical  training?  Certainly  not  because  he  feels  that  he 
needs  the  exercise,  for  he  can  supply  this  in  a  much  easier 
way  and  at  much  less  expense  to  his  daily  comfort.  With 
him,  the  motive  is  the  laudable  one  of  commanding  the 
esteem  of  his  fellows  and  exciting  the  admiration  of  the 
public.  For  the  most  part,  the  game  is  not  a  pleasure  to 
him,  but  a  severe  strain,  which  he  willingly  undergoes  in 
order  to  gain  his  end.  He  is  probably  among  the  ablest 
students  of  his  class;  but,  if  he  devoted  himself  to  purely 
intellectual  improvement,  he  would  have  to  wait  long  years 
before  getting  into  the  Umelight,  while  in  the  athletic  team 
he  finds  himself  there  at  once.  If  he  is  not  received  at  home 
as  was  a  winner  in  the  Olympian  games,  he  has  at  least  the 
satisfaction  of  feeling  that  his  friends  and  relatives  take 
pride  in  the  qualities  he  has  displayed. 

If  interest  in  the  contests  were  confined  to  students  and 
their  relatives,  the  actual  situation  would  not  have  pre- 
sented itself.  Its  important  feature  is  the  extraordinary 
public  interest  which  the  games  now  excite,  and  which  may 
be  fairly  measured  by  the  sums  collected  from  gate  re- 
ceipts and  other  sources,  the  total  of  which  would  sufl&ce 
to  pay  an  important  part  of  the  expenses  of  a  imiversity. 
The  income  from  gate  receipts  alone  has  been  so  great  that 
the  problem  how  to  dispose  of  it  could  be  solved  only  by 
incurring  enormous  outlays  for  expenses  of  all  sorts.  If 
we  had  here  a  measure  of  public  interest  in  the  physical 
improvement  of  students,  the  situation  would  at  least  show 
one  bright  side.  But  it  may  well  be  questioned  whether 
this  is  the  case,  and  whether  the  real  incentive  at  play  is 
not  as  old  as  history — the  love  of  witnessing  a  combat. 
Is  it  not  the  same  impulse  which  gave  rise  to  gladiatorial 
contests  in  ancient  Rome,  to  the  bull-fights  of  Spain,  to 
the  cock-fights  of  the  English,  and  to  the  prize-fights  of 


UNIVERSITY  ATHLETICS  125 

English  and  American  pugilists;  and  which  to-day  collects 
a  crowd  around  two  dogs  fighting  in  the  street?  Is  it  not 
that  trait  of  our  nature  which  leads  to  a  personal  squabble 
between  two  legislators  in  the  parliament  of  any  civilized 
country  being  cabled  over  the  world  with  more  promptness 
than  a  debate  on  the  most  important  subjects?  Let  us 
not  say  that  it  is  useless  to  contend  against  a  trait  so  widely 
diffused.  In  spite  of  its  universality,  we  all  admit,  in  our 
sober  moments,  that  the  impulse  is  an  ignoble  one.  We 
prohibit  prize-fighting  by  law.  A  modern  gentleman  would 
be  ashamed  to  join  a  crowd  looking  at  a  dog-fight.  What- 
ever the  interest  he  might  feel  in  the  contest,  his  conscience 
tells  him  that  he  can  have  no  rational  basis  for  a  desire  to 
witness  the  scene.  The  older  and  wiser  he  grows  the  more 
evident  becomes  the  ignoble  character  of  the  impulse.  We, 
descendants  of  the  Puritans,  should  esteem  as  a  compliment 
to  our  forebears  rather,  than  a  slur  upon  them,  Macaulay's 
borrowed  apothegm — "they  opposed  bear-baiting  not  be- 
cause it  gave  pain  to  the  bear,  but  because  it  gave  pleasure 
to  the  spectators."  Their  better  nature  clearly  showed 
them  that,  apart  from  the  question  of  cruelty,  it  was  an 
unworthy  trait  of  our  nature  which  could  find  enjoyment 
in  the  spectacle.  The  intercollegiate  football  game  gives 
an  air  of  respectability  to  a  spectacle  which  we  should  other- 
wise regard  as  undignified.  A  contest  between  two  teams 
of  professional  football  players  would  be  as  interesting  to 
witness  as  one  between  students.  But  the  veneering  of 
respectability  would  then  be  wanting. 

Probably  the  class  of  thinkers  who,  while  admitting  the 
force  of  this  argument,  feel  that  it  is  useless  to  oppose  the 
spirit  of  the  age  may  not  be  a  small  one.  And  yet,  were 
we  to  carry  this  idea  to  its  extreme,  we  should  do  away 
with  one  of  the  great  functions  of  educational  institutions — 


126  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

which  is  to  improve  the  spirit  of  the  age.  There  is  a  wide 
field  between  the  policy  of  bringing  the  world  at  once  up  to 
our  standards,  and  leaving  it  entirely,  to  go  its  own  way. 
Universities  and  other  academic  institutions,  being  organ- 
ized to  correct  what  is  evil  in  human  impulses  and  promote 
what  is  good,  should  not  assume  the  position  of  even  pas- 
sive spectators  of  a  movement  which  sets  their  own  ideals 
at  naught. 

It  must  be  clearly  understood  that,  in  all  we  have  said, 
we  keep  in  mind  a  comparison  between  two  systems — one 
devoting  itself,  in  the  German  fashion,  to  the  comparatively 
uninteresting  task  of  encouraging  the  healthy  physical 
development  of  all  students,  and  the  other  to  the  promotion 
of  spectacular  games.  The  difference  between  these  two 
motives  is  one  that  we  are  bound  to  recognize  in  the  general 
interest  of  morality.  It  is  the  difference  between  loving 
excellence  for  its  own  sake  and  loving  to  excel  others.  It 
is  Hke  the  difference  between  self-respect  as  an  object  in 
life  and  the  desire  to  win  the  respect  and  applause  of  others. 
But  can  we  ehminate  from  the  motives  to  physical  train- 
ing the  desire  to  excel  our  fellows?  In  considering  this 
question,  let  us  demur  at  the  outset  that  a  negative  answer 
would  not  mean  that  the  present  system  must  be  supported. 
We  have  already  shown  that  the  latter  does  not  yield  the 
fruits  we  have  a  right  to  expect.  We  should  therefore 
abandon  it,  even  if  another  way  could  not  be  found.  But 
we  have  only  to  study  the  facts  of  the  case  to  show  that 
the  better  motive  is  not  only  worthy  to  prevail,  but  may 
practically  be  made  to  prevail.  We  have  only  to  substitute 
the  man  himself  as  the  standard  of  comparison,  instead  of 
the  fellow  man. 

There  still  stands  in  a  corner  of  the  Harvard  University 
grounds  a  small,  low,  old-fashioned  brick  building,  offering 


UNIVERSITY  ATHLETICS  127 

in  its  proportions  a  striking  contrast  to  the  buildings  of 
to-day.  It  was  the  first  gymnasium  erected  for  the  use  of 
Harvard  students.  In  it  those  who  aimed  at  increasing 
the  physical  strength  took  as  much  pleasure  in  noting  their 
improvement  every  week  as  does  the  football  player  of 
to-day  in  his  contests.  This  continual  gain,  coupled  with 
the  real  pleasure  of  physical  activity,  which  perhaps  many 
experienced  there  for  the  first  time,  was  the  sufl&cient  motive 
to  gain  the  full  measure  of  physical  energy  attainable  by 
the  constitution  of  each  individual  student.  We  never 
know  how  interesting  the  simplest  exercise  may  be  unless 
we  have  had  the  experience.  I  never  saw  an  outing  more 
enjoyed  than  that  of  a  poor  widow  of  a  Tyrolese  school- 
master, who  once  arranged  a  picnic  for  a  small  party  on 
a  slope  of  one  of  her  native  mountains.  I  could  see  nothing 
in  it  but  cooking  and  eating  a  meal  out-of-doors  instead  of 
in  the  house;  but  it  gave  her  a  pleasure  and  a  distraction 
which  lightened  her  labors  for  days  to  come.  In  the  light 
of  a  modern  athletic  contest,  the  interest  taken  by  the 
students  of  forty  years  ago  in  their  exercises  may  seem  quite 
childish.  Who  but  a  child  could  be  amused,  as  students 
then  were,  by  seeing  his  fellows  lean  backward  and  walk 
under  a  barrier  slowly  lowered  day  by  day  imtil  it  was 
little  more  than  knee-high  ?  The  youth  who  was  looking 
forward  to  increasing  the  weight  of  his  dumb-bells  from 
sixty  to  eighty  pounds,  who  could  walk  to  the  end  of  a 
vibrating  spar  without  falling,  and  who  was  hoping  soon 
to  be  able  to  mount  up  the  peg-studded  pole  while  hang- 
ing by  his  hands,  were  all  interested  by  the  sight  of  what 
the  others  could  do  in  these  various  lines.  It  cannot  be 
denied  that  all  gained  the  greatest  of  the  benefits  that 
come  from  physical  exercise;  and,  if  we  would  secure  the 
same  advantage  to  our  children,  we  can  do  it  by  inciting 


128  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

them  to  action  on  similar  lines.  Instead  of  each  trying 
to  excel  his  fellows,  which  he  knows  is  vain  unless  he  is 
one  of  the  strongest  of  the  class,  each  person  must  try  to 
be  stronger  to-day  than  he  was  yesterday.  Even  if  we 
cannot  move  every  one  by  this  motive,  we  shall  certainly 
move  more  than  we  do  under  our  present  system. 

Let  us  temper  a  little  our  admiration  for  the  manly 
qualities  displayed  in  an  athletic  contest,  by  recognizing 
the  confusion  between  cause  and  effect  which  we  find  in- 
volved. Probably  nearly  all  of  our  readers  would  share 
with  the  writer  the  pleasure  which  he  would  feel  in  seeing 
a  son  win  a  boat-race.  But  why?  Because  the  winning 
made  him  stronger?  No,  but  because  winning  proved 
him  to  be  a  strong  man  to  begin  with.  Success  was  the 
effect,  not  the  cause,  of  strength.  The  same  remark  will 
apply  to  the  manly  qualities  displayed  in  an  athletic  game. 
Psychologists  will  tell  us  that  it  is  very  doubtful  whether 
innate  qualities  can  be  improved  in  any  great  degree  in 
this  way.  But,  apart  from  this,  as  we  are  now  in  a  critical 
mood,  let  us  inquire  whether  the  manly  qualities  at  play 
in  a  contest  are  really  those  which  the  world  most  needs 
to-day  and  will  need  in  the  future. 

It  is  a  characteristic  of  human  nature  that  the  senti- 
ments and  ideas  which  we  inherit  from  our  ancestors  may 
continue  through  many  generations  after  they  have  ceased 
to  be  needed.  It  is  of  especial  interest  that  such  sentiments 
are  strongest  in  the  boy,  and  tend  to  diminish  with  age. 
In  former  times,  cities,  villages,  nations,  and  empires  were 
so  exposed  to  aggressions  from  their  neighbors  that  not 
only  their  prosperity,  but  even  the  lives  of  their  people, 
depended  upon  the  prowess  and  courage  of  their  fighting 
population.  Hence  arose  an  admiration  for  these  qualities, 
which  we  may  expect  to  continue,  not  only  as  long  as  war 


UNIVERSITY  ATHLETICS  129 

is  permitted,  but  even  after  conditions  are  so  improved  that 
no  one  will  ever  be  obliged  to  place  himself  voluntarily 
in  danger  for  the  benefit  of  his  fellow  men.  Every  well- 
endowed  boy  of  to-day  admires  the  brave  fighter  as  the 
highest  type  of  humanity  and  shows  his  budding  patriotism 
by  delighting  in  the  battles  which  our  soldiers  have  won. 
But,  as  he  grows  up,  he  is  from  time  to  time  surprised  to 
find  social  regulations  at  seeming  variance  with  his  ideas. 
He  learns  that  the  man  who  jumps  off  the  Brooklyn  Bridge, 
or  risks  life  and  limb  otherwise  than  in  the  performance 
of  the  greatest  public  or  private  duty,  instead  of  receiving 
the  reward  of  a  hero  is  haled  before  the  courts,  to  be  dealt 
with  as  an  offender  against  the  law.  His  traditional  ideas  of 
the  qualities  essential  in  a  soldier  include  readiness  to  take 
offense  and  to  engage  in  mortal  combat  with  his  personal 
enemy.  He  is  therefore  surprised  when  he  finds  that  duel- 
ling is  prohibited  by  the  regulations  governing  modern 
armies,  and  that  the  officer  of  to-day  need  not  be  quick 
of  temper  to  prove  his  courage.  The  writer  was  once  told 
by  a  distinguished  officer  of  the  past  generation  that  it  was 
a  disappointment  to  the  average  citizen  when  he  first  found 
that  the  naval  officer  of  our  time  was  an  educated  gentle- 
man, who  did  not  interlard  his  conversation  with  sea  slang. 
As  the  boy  grows  to  manhood,  he  finds  that  fear  is  strongest 
in  his  boyhood  and  that  physical  courage  is  the  rule  and 
not  the  exception  among  grown  men. 

In  the  same  category  with  physical  courage  we  may  place 
readiness  to  engage  in  personal  combat.  The  boy  who 
possesses  this  quality  has  a  decided  advantage  among  his 
fellows.  But,  as  he  grows  older,  he  finds  that  the  require- 
ments of  social  life  render  it  an  undesirable  quality  among 
grown  men.  The  boy  who  is  not  ready  to  defend  himself 
is  liable  to  be  imposed  upon  by  his  fellows.    But  the  grown 


I30  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

man  trusts  for  his  protection  to  public  opinion  and  to  the 
agents  of  the  law;  and,  although  the  latter  may  not  al- 
ways be  at  hand  when  needed,  it  is  not  likely  that  an  oc- 
casion will  ever  arise  during  his  life  in  which  he  will  have 
to  maintain  his  rights  in  the  manner  employed  by  primi- 
tive mankind.  How  much  soever  he  would  be  pleased  to 
down  a  burglar,  he  might  live  through  a  score  of  lives  with- 
out once  enjoying  the  opportunity. 

If  the  argument  here  submitted  is  sound,  the  wisest 
policy  on  the  part  of  believers  in  physical  training  as  a 
basis  of  intellectual  efficiency  is  to  discourage  and,  if  pos- 
sible, abolish  that  special  form  of  intercollegiate  contests 
which  has  assumed  such  striking  proportions  during  the 
past  ten  years.  We  should  not  lose  sight  of  the  fact  that 
the  energy  displayed  in  these  contests  is  misdirected,  and 
that  a  wise  adaptation  of  means  to  ends  requires  athletic 
exercises  to  be  a  personal  matter,  in  which  each  individual 
shall  be  interested  in  his  own  improvement  rather  than  in 
his  ability  to  outdo  his  fellows. 


IX 

PANEM  ET  CIRCENSESi 

RICHARD  RICE,  JR. 

In  one  of  the  great  American  universities  there  used  to 
prevail  a  curious  fashion,  now  abandoned,  of  heartening 
the  Varsity  football  team.  Every  afternoon  during  the 
week  or  ten  days  before  the  chief  contest,  the  whole  student 
body  and  a  strong  following  of  citizens  marched  in  column 
from  the  campus  to  attend  practise.  With  flags  and  tro- 
phies on  high  they  paraded  behind  a  brass  band,  encircled 
the  gridiron  a  number  of  times,  and  then  spent  two  hours 
on  the  bleachers  glorying  and  cheering,  while  the  evolutions 
of  the  'varsity  continued.  Moreover,  these  last  exercises, 
before  the  team  went  forth  to  victory  or  defeat,  were  only 
the  culmination  of  a  season-long  performance  in  which  the 
rest  of  the  undergraduates  appeared  to  have  almost  as 
important  a  daily  part  as  the  players  themselves.  The 
notion  was  generally  encouraged  that  the  team  could  do 
nothing  at  practise  without  a  crowd  of  vociferous  admirers. 
An  undergraduate  who  failed  to  support  this  theory  was 
generally  known  as  a  "quitter";  and,  indeed,  if  he  wanted 
to  be  thought  a  man  of  college  spirit,  the  only  obvious  way 
was  to  attend  practise  assiduously  and  talk  about  it  copi- 
ously— and  very  little  else — from  the  first  days  of  the  sea- 
son.   The  real  state  of  the  case  can  perhaps  be  judged  by 

•  Reprinted  in  part  from  an  article  in  The  Nation,  through  the  courtesy 
of  The  Nation. 

131 


132  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

the  fact  that  playing  tennis  or  taking  a  country  walk  during 
the  Varsity  practise  hours  was  "the  very  worst  form." 

Then  the  university  got  a  new  president,  and  all  this 
changed.  The  new  president  was  very  popular;  but  he 
played  golf  every  afternoon  himself,  and  believed  that  the 
purpose  of  a  university  is  intellect.  He  saw  some  connec- 
tion between  intellect  and  sport,  very  little  between  in- 
tellect and  bleachers. 


Those  who  know  American  colleges  throughout  the  land 
have  long  realized  that  there  are,  in  comparison  to  the 
total  number  of  students,  few  players  of  games.  Especially 
in  the  West  sport  is  limited  almost  entirely  to  the  so- 
called  representative  teams,  which  represent  the  name  of  the 
institution,  but  not  an  atmosphere  of  sportsmanship.  At 
the  most  these  teams  are  products  of  the  anxiety  of  students 
to  beat  their  rivals,  and  of  an  executive  plan  to  achieve 
in  this  way  a  necessary  amount  of  publicity.  They  are 
not  products  of  intramural  competition  and  of  personal 
interest  in  the  playing  of  games.  It  appears  as  if  the  prowess 
of  the  'varsity  team  satisfied  the  athletic  aspirations  of 
all  the  other  students. 

That  such  a  condition  is  bad  for  the  tone  of  a  college  not 
everybody  is  ready  to  admit.  There  is  an  opinion  that 
because  the  purpose  of  the  college  is  intellect  and  study, 
then  the  more  limited  the  athletic  class  the  better  for 
the  institution.  But  this  is  a  judgment  based  on  a  mis- 
conception of  what  athletics  mean,  a  misconception  fos- 
tered by  the  wide-spread  indifference  of  undergraduates  to 
the  right  sort  of  athletics.  It  is  our  general  contention 
here  that  an  academic  institution  will  be  sounder  Intel- 


PANEM  ET  CIRCENSES  133 

lectually  if  sport  is  prevalent  or,  at  least,  not  limited  to 
the  so-called  "representative"  few,  the  specialists. 

This  we  believe  to  be  true  for  two  reasons.  Sport  within 
the  walls,  popular  athletic  activity,  offers  a  stimulating 
variety  of  personal  employment  and  interest,  a  zest  for 
living,  and  a  means  for  clean  physical  health.  Where 
the  playing  of  games  is  prevalent,  the  tone  of  the  whole 
student  body  is  more  alert,  more  vigorous  and  sane.  This 
is  the  obvious  and  positive  reason.  The  other  reason  is 
negative,  and,  though  more  difficult  to  grasp,  is  equally 
in  point.  Where  Varsity  sport  is  not  the  outgrowth  of 
general  athletic  activity,  or  where  it  seems  to  absorb  all 
athletic  enthusiasm  without  being  productive  of  individual 
sportsmanship  in  the  rank  and  file  of  students,  where  it  is 
the  advertisement  instead  of  the  real  thing,  it  becomes 
antagonistic  to  intellect  and  study,  because  it  furnishes  a 
second-rate  employment  to  the  main  body  of  students, 
and  a  second-hand  diversion.  Vicarious  athletics  on  the 
bleachers,  attending  practise,  "heeling  the  team,"  talking 
athletics,  breathing  athletics,  without  some  daily  personal 
realization  of  the  matter,  may  well  promote  an  aptitude 
for  mental  inertia.  Panem  et  circenses — ^peanuts  and  ball 
games !  Where  the  teams  furnish  the  only  games,  sport 
is  merely  a  show.  It  lacks  the  chief  effects  of  play.  The 
tone  it  lends  to  an  institution  is  mainly  the  noise  of  a  well- 
drilled  college  yell.  And  it  does  little  for  the  individual 
student  except  that,  when  his  team  wins,  his  own  chest 
expansion  is  vicariously  increased. 

This  latter  reason  is  especially  weighty  because  it  de- 
scribes the  trouble  not  only  with  college  athletics,  but  with 
American  athletics  in  general.  It  describes  what  is  growing 
to  be  our  national  outlook  on  sport,  the  grand-stand  out- 
look.    This  point  of  view,  which  college  students  ought 


134  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

not  to  assume  but  to  correct,  is  the  result  of  so  profes- 
sionalizing, or  highly  specializing,  our  chief  games  that 
nobody  but  experts  play  them.  The  fact  that  this  un- 
doubtedly helps  produce  our  great  specialists,  our  winners 
at  Olympic  games,  is  beside  the  present  point.  We  may 
have  the  greatest  experts  in  the  world;  but  as  a  nation 
our  interest  is  centred  in  these  experts,  not  in  the  games. 
We  have  become,  even  in  our  colleges,  not  sportsmen  but 
"fans." 

Now,  of  course,  there  is  plenty  of  room  for  the  "fan," 
and  outside  college  days  he  is  a  humorous  and  commendable 
institution.  On  sweltering  afternoons  in  Pittsburgh  or 
Kansas  City,  it  is  entirely  in  keeping  that  he  should  take 
his  exercise  in  the  shade  of  the  grand-stand,  and  become, 
by  continual  assistance  there  and  by  continual  study  of 
the  Sunday  Supplement,  a  very  great  authority.  But  no- 
body would  dream  of  calling  the  "fan"  a  sportsman.  He 
is,  on  the  contrary,  only  a  "sport,"  which  is  a  term,  if 
you  will  look  it  up  in  the  dictionary,  that  means  "an 
anomaly,  a  divergence  from  the  species."  The  "sport," 
and  especially  the  college  "sport,"  is  not  the  real  thing. 
Yet  part  of  the  perversion  of  our  attitude  toward  athletics 
comes,  in  this  case,  either  from  imagining  that  without 
him  there  would  be  no  sportsmanship  at  all,  or — if  we 
are  especially  obtuse — from  thinking  that  the  "sport"  or 
the  "fan"  is  himself  the  representative  American  athlete. 
But  the  second  case  is  so  absurd  that  we  already  catch  a 
glimpse  of  the  fallacy  in  the  first. 

When  rightly  understood,  this  fallacy  reveals  the  fact,  in- 
timated before,  that  the  grand-stand  athlete  is  primarily  not 
the  cause  of  our  present  evil  situation,  but  rather  a  result. 
He  may,  of  course,  become  a  positive  reason  for  failure  to 
eradicate  the  cause,  since  he  is  so  profitable.    But  the  prime 


PANEM  ET  CIRCENSES  135 

reason  why  we  have  not  a  greater  number  of  sportsmen 
in  sport,  why  so  few  people  themselves  play  games  for  the 
fun  of  it,  why  the  entertainment  of  the  "fan,"  viz.,  high 
specialization,  is  growing  to  be  even  in  colleges  the  chief 
consideration,  is  not  the  "fan's"  fanaticism,  but  our  na- 
tional miscomprehension  of  the  true  spirit  of  play — our 
ignorance  of  how  to  keep  games  in  their  playable  form. 

Think,  for  example,  how  we  have  improved  the  good 
game  of  football  till  nobody  but  trained  and  armed  spe- 
cialists dare  to  play  it.  Englishmen  had  invented  eminently 
playable  forms  of  this  game,  in  which  anybody  with  legs 
and  lungs  might  be  expected  to  take  part.  Nearly  every 
English  village  and  town,  as  well  as  the  colleges,  has  its 
teams  for  soccer  and  Rugby,  and  hundreds  of  EngUshmen 
are  playing  these  two  games  every  autumn  afternoon, 
where  hundreds  of  Americans  are  only  looking  on.  The 
reason  for  this  difference  is  not  climate;  it  is  a  simpler 
reason.  We  took  these  playable  games  of  football  and 
reduced  them,  with  more  cleverness  than  foresight,  to  one 
type  of  extreme  difficulty  and  considerable  danger.  It  is 
a  game  that  requires  far  more  skill  in  leadership,  in  pre- 
concerted plans  and  secret  signals,  in  thorough  training 
and  team-play,  than  any  of  the  English  games.  It  is,  in 
fact,  a  game  that  can  be  played  with  profit  only  by  regularly 
coached  teams  of  men  who  enjoy  constitutions  that  occur 
in  most  families  but  once  in  several  generations.  It  is  not 
a  popular  game;  it  is  only  a  spectacular  game.  The  people 
do  not  play  football  in  America. 

Like  Americans,  in  regard  to  most  of  our  national  sports, 
we  say:  "Let  George  do  it;  we'll  watch."  But  thus 
specialized,  with  all  eyes  on  him,  George  is  no  longer  the 
player  of  a  game;  he  is  a  man  burdened  with  a  tremendous 
duty,  the  duty  of  being  a  representative  athlete.    This  duty 


136     COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

has  been  well  described  by  a  Harvard  rowing  man.  He 
has  put  in  black  and  white  what  most  representative 
athletes  will  admit  as  frankly  in  private  conversation. 
"The  duty  to  get  Yale  beaten,"  says  Mr.  William  James, 
Jr./  "is  just  now  reckoned  to  be  the  athlete's  sole  duty, 
while  his  duty  to  his  present  and  future  self  looms  small 
in  the  background,  or  vaguely  in  the  middle  distance.  It 
is  hard  lines  for  men  who  are  unable  to  adapt  themselves 
to  such  a  perspective,  and  who  are  made  to  feel  ashamed 
of  this  as  a  weakness.  They  bear  indeed  the  'athlete's 
burden.'  And  there  are  too  many  such  men — men  who 
thoroughly  dislike  their  work  under  the  present  extreme 
conditions,  moral  as  well  as  physical,  and  who  do  it  only 
from  a  vague  feeling  that  it  is  'up  to  them'  to  stake  their 
persons  in  the  general  obligation  to  organize  victory.  The 
spirit  that  makes  a  man,  when  he  has  once  undertaken  a 
thing,  put  it  through  to  a  finish  and  win  out  no  matter 
what  it  costs  ...  is  an  excellent  maxim  for  business  or 
politics.  .  .  .  But  such  a  maxim  cannot  be  applied  to 
athletics.  It  means  the  death  of  athletics.  Its  place  is  in 
the  prize-ring  or  anywhere  you  please  save  in  a  branch  of 
activity  which  is  essentially  a  recreation.  The  true  amateur 
athlete,  the  true  sportsman,  is  one  who  takes  up  sport  for 
the  fun  of  it  and  the  love  of  it,  and  to  whom  success  or 
defeat  is  a  secondary  matter  so  long  as  the  play  is  good." 
Mr.  James  goes  on  to  explain  that  rivalry  is  a  vital  element 
of  sport,  but  that  the  pleasure  of  doing  a  thing  well  need 
not  be  spoiled  by  the  disappointment  of  not  doing  so  well 
as  the  other  man.  "Pure  rivalry  is  fighting,  and  the  more 
its  part  is  magnified  in  sport  the  more  sport  takes  on  the 
nature  of  a  fight." 

Do  we  prefer  the  fight  to  the  sport  ?    We  do,  just  so  long 
*  The  Harvard  Graduates'  Magazine,  December,  1903. 


PANEM  ET  CIRCENSES  137 

as  we  are  grand-stand  athletes.  Curiously  enough,  it  is 
by  one  of  our  fine  sayings  that  we  most  clearly  show  this 
temper:  "The  whole  college,"  we  say,  "is back  of  the  team." 
In  this  phrase  can  be  felt  both  the  spirit  of  our  students 
and  their  miscomprehension  of  play.  Being  "back  of  the 
team"  does  not  mean  supporting  the  team  and  its  special 
sport  by  general  activity  in  that  sport,  which  would  furnish 
resources  in  men  for  the  future;  it  means  being  on  the 
bleachers  at  practise,  and  in  a  dozen  other  attitudes,  all 
non-athletic,  exerting  psychological  influence,  mental  sug- 
gestion, by  talking  and  wilUng  the  team  on  to  victory. 
In  this  sort  of  enthusiasm,  if  there  is  something  rather  fine, 
there  is  also  something  very  futile.  For  while  one  can 
rarely  feel  anything  so  seemingly  powerful  as  this  will  of 
a  great  university,  as  it  grows  during  the  weeks  preceding 
the  final  contests  and  asserts  itself  at  last  tensely  and 
thunderously  across  the  field,  while  this  undoubtedly  has 
its  moral  value,  it  is  nevertheless  not  an  expression  of  the 
spirit  of  play.  It  does  not  arise  out  of  personal  experience 
in  the  game.  It  is  second-hand.  It  is  largely  mere 
contagion. 

What  is  true  of  football  is  in  many  colleges  only  less 
true  of  our  other  representative  and  more  playable  game  of 
baseball;  and,  until  a  few  years  ago  when  the  revival  of 
interest  in  tennis  all  over  the  land  brought  in  a  sport  that 
does  not  lend  itself  to  vicarious  enthusiasm,  sport,  outside 
the  "representative"  teams,  was  a  dead  letter  in  many 
of  our  institutions. 

Tennis  and  golf,  field  and  ice  hockey,  and  some  of  the 
minor  sports,  so  called  because  they  are  not  spectacular, 
have  in  many  places  saved  the  spirit  of  play.  And  there 
is  just  now  a  general  movement  in  town  and  college  for  a 
healthier  physical  life,  for  more  outdoor  activity  without 


138  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

undue  sacrifice  of  time.  Country  clubs,  rowing  clubs,  open- 
air  gymnasiums,  hockey  fields,  and  other  opportunities  for 
physical  culture  are  increasing  appropriately  to  the  needs 
and  resources  of  many  progressive  communities  where 
the  enjoyment  of  life  has  not  been  forgotten.  But  com- 
pared with  England  we  are  still  very  backward.  No  col- 
lege community  in  America  has  such  economic  facilities 
for  sport  as  the  twenty-two  colleges  of  Oxford,  where  (to 
quote  from  a  report),  ''each  has  its  own  boat-house  on 
the  river  for  the  use  of  its  rowing  men,  its  own  athletic 
field  where  are  laid  out  a  football  field,  a  cricket  field,  a 
dozen  or  more  tennis-courts,  and  a  club  house  with  lockers 
and  baths."  There  are  twenty-five  hundred  undergraduates 
at  Oxford,  and,  "it  is  safe  to  say,"  the  report  continues, 
*'that  at  least  eighty  per  cent  engage  actively  every  day 
in  one  or  more  branches  of  sport."  ^ 

There  is  no  American  college  where  the  facilities  are  so 
complete  and  arranged  so  economically  in  regard  to  prox- 
imity and  opportunity.  At  Harvard,  where  a  larger  pro- 
portion of  men  regularly  engage  in  some  sport  than  at 
any  other  very  large  institution,  the  proportion  would  not 
be  over  one  man  in  four.  There  are  dozens  of  other  in- 
stitutions where  it  would  not  be  over  one  in  twenty,  the 
university  facilities  and  the  inclinations  of  the  students 
being  about  equally  accountable  in  the  matter. 


n 

A  knowledge  of  such  academic  conditions,  with  a  firm 
belief  in  the  value  of  regular  sport,  a  knowledge  that  the 
finest  intellectual  tone  exists  in   the  schools  where   the 

^  L.  C.  Hull,  in  The  American  Oxonian,  April,  1914:  "  Athletics  at  Oxford : 
The  New  Rules." 


PANEM  ET  CIRCENSES  139 

largest  percentage  of  students  are  athletically  active  and 
not  in  institutions  where  they  just  ''come  to  work,"  a 
belief  that  the  body  is  ultimately  as  important  as  the 
mind  and  that  the  mind  is  nearly  always  dependent  on 
the  body,  should  lead  to  the  means  of  improving,  ere  long, 
the  general  status  of  college  athletics. 

The  means  are  various,  and,  of  course,  largely  determined 
by  local  conditions.  But  they  may  be  generally  described 
under  two  heads.  Obviously  there  should  be  facilities  for 
a  reasonable  amount  of  daily  sport — facilities  which  cer- 
tain colleges  most  strenuously  concerned  with  their  repre- 
sentative teams  have  almost  entirely  neglected.  Indeed 
it  is  a  curious  reflection  on  the  efficiency  of  educational 
methods  that  tennis-courts  adequate  to  a  large  university, 
and  handball  and  basket-ball  areas,  which  can  be  in  use 
all  winter,  cost  less  than  the  housing  of  the  smallest  de- 
partment and  mean  in  terms  of  mental  efficiency  far  more, 
yet  are,  as  a  rule,  thought  of  last.  Secondly,  it  seems  as 
if  the  time  had  come  to  offer  some  sort  of  official  encourage- 
ment to  the  general  athletic  prowess  and  physical  culture 
of  individuals,  and  to  honor  with  a  distinction,  analogous 
to  Phi  Beta  Kappa  or  Sigma  Xi,  the  man  who  makes  of 
his  body  what  the  college  curriculum  strives  to  make  of 
his  mind,  a  thing  trained  to  be  responsive  and  to  work  with 
the  smallest  waste  of  energy. 

For  this  purpose,  it  is  interesting  to  note  that  there  has 
already  been  established  in  a  number  of  universities  and 
colleges  a  society  called  Sigma  Delta  Psi,  membership  in 
which  is  secured  by  passing  a  series  of  athletic  tests  that 
involve  all  the  chief  elements  of  physical  efficiency — effort, 
speed,  endurance,  co-ordination.  The  all-round  athlete,  ac- 
cording to  these  tests,  will  be  a  man  whose  eyes,  muscles,  and 
will  are  in  excellent  accord,  a  man  capable  of  a  great  variety 


I40  COLLEGE  AND   THE   FUTURE 

of  physical  actions  which  combine  to  a  marked  degree 
strength,  motor  power,  and  skill.  His  physical  condition 
and  ability  may  be  the  result  of  a  slightly  cultivated  native 
athletic  gift,  but,  oftener,  of  thorough  physical  training. 

This  society  and  its  purpose,  being  so  obviously  for  the 
encouragement  of  extensive  rather  than  of  intensive  ath- 
letics, deserve  here  some  description.  The  twelve  tests 
for  full  standing  in  the  society,  decided  on  only  after  much 
conferring  among  experts  all  over  the  country,  are  as 
follows:  I  co-yard  run,  11%  seconds;  220-yard  low  hurdles, 
31  seconds;  running  high  jump,  5  feet;  running  broad 
jump,  17  feet;  putting  16-pound  shot,  30  feet  for  a  man 
weighing  160  pounds,  and  proportionately  shorter  distances 
for  men  of  lighter  weight;  pole  vault,  8  feet  6  inches; 
throwing  baseball,  250  feet;  punting  football,  120  feet; 
swim  (for  distance  only),  100  yards;  2-mile  run,  12  minutes 
15  seconds;  lo-mile  walk,  2  hours  30  minutes;  tumbling 
(front  handspring,  front  dive  over  4-foot  obstacle,  hand- 
stand maintained  for  10  seconds).  Full  standing  in  the 
society  means  the  accomplishment,  during  the  period  of 
matriculation,  as  undergraduate  or  graduate  student,  of  all 
these  records,  except  that  the  man  who  has  received  the 
Varsity  letter  in  any  sport  (who  is  a  full-fledged  member 
of  one  of  the  university  teams),  may  substitute  this  letter 
for  any  one  requirement  in  the  society  except  swimming. 
There  is  a  set  of  slightly  lower  records  for  junior  standing. 

At  first  glance  these  records  for  full  standing  may  appear 
extremely  easy.  Compared  to  the  records  of  the  specialists 
they  are  not  difficult.  But  to  do  them  all,  there's  the 
rub.  Hundreds  of  people  can  throw  a  baseball  two  hun- 
dred and  fifty  feet,  swim  one  hundred  yards,  walk  ten 
miles  in  two  hours  and  a  half.  These  usually  prove  for 
the  aspirant   the  easiest  tests.      But  now  let  him  pick 


PANEM  ET  CIRCENSES  141 

out  any  other  three  events,  to  complete  half  the  total 
number,  and  see  how  enormously  the  difficulty  has  in- 
creased. If  he  is  a  runner,  he  will  do  the  hundred  yards 
and  the  two-mile  run,  but  can  he  do  the  low  hurdles  or 
the  broad  jump,  which  should  also  be  somewhat  in  his 
line?  The  events  most  generally  difficult  are  the  low 
hurdles,  the  broad  jump,  the  pole  vault,  the  two-mile 
run,  and  the  tumbling.  For  any  student  to  accomplish 
the  whole  list,  whether  he  has  a  high  degree  of  native 
ability  or  not,  will  obviously  require  a  considerable  amount 
and  variety  of  training.  Yet  it  is  probable  that  a  man  of 
first-rate  physical  and  athletic  abiUty  should  be  able  to 
qualify  in  all  the  tests  at  the  end  of  a  single  year  if  he  so 
desires;  while  any  man  of  normal,  sound  physique  might 
expect  to  qualify,  with  a  longer  period  of  training,  in  the 
junior  standing.  One  hour  a  day,  including  dressing,  is 
said  to  be  ample  time  to  devote  to  the  matter. 

The  society  thus  helps  any  student,  whether  or  not  he 
foresees  the  possibility  of  admission  to  its  ranks,  to  give 
point  and  interest  to  his  necessary  daily  exercise.  It 
helps  to  make  a  game  out  of  what  is  often  humdrum  gym- 
nasium work,  to  bring  an  amusing  and  not  too  strenuous 
sort  of  competition  into  self-training.  For  there  is  strongly 
in  this  whole  idea  one  of  the  most  useful  elements  in 
all  sport,  the  contest  with  oneself.  It  is  the  element 
that  makes  golf  so  beneficial  and  so  popular.  Golf  is 
made  up  of  competition  and  introspection.  However  self- 
knowledge  comes,  it  is  imdoubtedly  useful;  it  is  a  satis- 
faction to  know  clearly  what  are  one's  capabilities  and 
defects,  where  one  stands  among  his  fellows,  and  how  to 
improve  in  many  specific  directions.  This  knowledge  is 
here  to  be  gained  in  interesting  ways,  by  no  means  devoid 
of  a  certain  excitement;  for,  Hke  the  golfer,  the  student 


142  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

not  only  plays  a  game  with  himself  and  with  the  other 
man,  but  with  Bogey,  in  this  case  the  all-round  athlete. 

The  entrance  of  such  influences  into  college  life  as  I 
have  attempted  to  describe,  with  their  emphasis  on  per- 
sonal participation  in  sport,  rather  than  on  panem  et 
circenses,  is  bound  to  have  a  wholesome  effect  on  student 
life.  Spare  energies  must  go  somewhere.  We  are  not 
wholly  intellectual.  At  present  the  idols  of  undergraduate 
ambition,  the  "activities"  which  Professor  Gayley  satir- 
izes, and  certain  other  dissipations,  receive  more  than  their 
due.  They  are  largely  waste.  They  create  no  energy  in 
return,  and  intellect  suffers.  But  with  the  entrance  of 
the  spirit  of  sportsmanship  into  a  university  a  great 
storage  of  energy  begins,  and,  besides  this,  a  healthy 
criticism  of  university  ideals.  The  scholar  feels  it  less  an 
honor  to  achieve  learning  at  the  expense  of  health,  and 
the  athletic  specialist,  who  has  devoted  himself  to  acquir- 
ing fame  in  one  line  and  who  has,  perhaps,  like  the  studious 
grind,  injured  his  constitution,  sees  things  in  truer  pro- 
portion. The  movement  toward  playing  games  and 
toward  extensive  physical  culture  is  but  part  of  the  new 
reaction  in  coUege  life  from  specialization  toward  unity, 
proportion,  and  balance.  The  fundamental  business  of 
the  college  is  and  always  will  be  intellect,  but  the  per- 
sonal business  of  every  student  is  to  see  to  it  that  he  has 
a  body  which  will  serve  intellect — a  business  which  the 
college  should  facilitate  and  encourage,  and  on  which  it 
might  well  place  officially  the  seal  of  academic  approval. 


X 


IDOLS  1 

CHARLES  MILLS   GAYLEY 
Epbraim  is  joined  to  idols.     Hosea  4  :  17 

A  World  of  Opportunity 

The  world  was  never  better  worth  preparing  for.  The 
panorama  unrolled  before  the  mind  was  never  more 
gorgeous: — a  new  renaissance  revealing  reaches  unimagined; 
prophesying  splendor  unimaginable;  unveiling  mysteries  of 
time  and  space  and  natural  law  and  human  potency. 

Archaeology  uncovers  with  a  spade  the  world  of  Ariadne 
and  of  Minos,  of  Agamemnon  and  of  Priam.  Where 
Jason  launched  the  Argo,  paintings  are  unearthed  that 
antedate  Apelles.  Mummied  crocodiles  disgorge  their 
papyri:  and  we  read  the  administrative  record  of  the 
Ptolemies.  Bacchylides  breaks  the  silence  of  centuries; 
himself  Menander  mounts  the  stage,  and  in  no  borrowed 
Roman  sock;  and  Aristotle  reappears  to  shed  fresh  light 
upon  the  constitution  of  the  Athenians. 

History,  availing  herself  of  cognate  sciences,  deciphers 
documents  and  conditions  anew;  and  the  vision  of  the 
past  is  reinterpreted  in  terms  of  social  and  economic 
actuality.  Emigrations  and  conquests  become  a  modern 
tale  of  commerce  and  industrial  stress.    Caesar  and  Agrip- 

*  From  "Idols  of  Education,"  in  part  a  commencement  address  delivered 
at  the  University  of  Michigan  in  1909,  as  a  valedictory  to  President  James 
B.  Angell,  then  retiring  after  thirty-nine  years  of  service.  Reprinted 
through  the  courtesy  of  Charles  Mills  Gayley  and  of  Messrs.  Doubleday, 
Page  and  Company. 

143 


144  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

pina,  Cromwell  and  Marie  Antoinette,  are  all  to  read 
again;  and  the  Bard  of  Venusia  acquires  a  new  and  star- 
tling modernity  as  the  literary  advance  agent  of  a  pluto- 
cratic wine  firm.  As  in  a  "glass  prospective"  literature  is 
viewed;  and  kaleidoscopic  transformations  of  gest  and 
ballad,  epic  and  drama,  cross-sections  of  the  crypt  of 
fiction,  dazzle  the  eye  of  critic  and  philologist  and  poet. 

With  golden  keys  of  psychology,  history,  and  philology 
the  anthropologist  imlocks  the  mind  of  primitive  man. 
The  student  of  the  holier  things  invades  the  Temple  it- 
self; and  from  day  to  day  the  sacramental  doors  swing 
back  on  age-long  galleries  of  worship. 

Taking  fresh  heart  of  ethics,  economics  wears  a  new 
and  most  seductive  smile.  No  longer  the  minimizing  of 
material  cost,  but  the  maximizing  of  vital  value,  she  re- 
gards. She  seeks  the  psychic  income,  the  margin  of  leisure 
for  the  soul,  the  margin  of  health  for  the  body:  the  great- 
est of  national  assets — the  true  wealth  of  nations.  To 
the  modem  problems  of  social  and  political  theory  and  of 
jurisprudence,  of  municipal  and  national  and  colonial 
administration,  a  similar  fascination  of  beneficent  discov- 
ery attracts;  and  to  that  development  of  international 
politics  which  aims  at  constitutional  law  rather  than  the 
substantive  private  law  of  nations. 

Geology  multipHes  her  aeons,  and  astronomy  her  glit- 
tering fields.  "Hills  peep  o'er  hills,  and  Alps  on  Alps" 
of  new  discovered  cause  "arise."  "The  idea  of  the  elec- 
tron has  broken  the  framework  of  the  old  physics  to  pieces, 
has  revived  ancient  atomistic  hypotheses,  and  made  of 
them  principles,"  and  radio-activity  "has  opened  to  the 
explorer  a  New  America  full  of  wealth  yet  unknown." 
The  science  of  the  law  of  celestial  movements  has  given 
birth  to  the  science  of  the  substance  of  celestial  bodies; 


IDOLS  145 

and,  with  astrophysics,  we  study  more  narrowly  than  ever 
our  one  star,  and  its  outcasts,  the  planets.  We  wonder- 
ingly  contemplate  the  transport  of  matter  from  star  to 
star — and  from  planet  to  planet,  maybe,  of  life. 

Geology  has  given  birth  to  physiography.  We  pass 
from  inorganic  to  organic,  and  probe  the  interaction  of 
physical  environment  and  animate  nature.  In  evolu- 
tionary science  they  are  saying  that  new  species  leap  into 
being  at  a  wave  of  the  wand  of  mutation;  and  the  war 
between  MendeUsm  and  Darwinism  wages.  The  knight- 
hood of  the  Quest  of  Life  enrolls  in  the  order  of  psychic 
mystery  or  the  order  of  mechanism,  and  presses  on. 
Though  neither  win  to  the  Grail,  each  wins  nearer  to  its 
law.  By  the  delicate  ministrations  of  surgery,  Ufe  is  pro- 
longed.    Immunization  lifts  ever  higher  her  red  cross. 

Engineering  advances,  agriculture  advances,  commerce 
expands.  We  compass  the  earth,  we  swim  the  seas,  we 
ride  the  air.  Our  voices  pierce  the  intervals  of  space,  and 
our  thoughts  the  unplumbed  waves  of  ether.  And  from 
her  watch-tower  scrutinizing  all— science,  pure  and  applied, 
history  and  art,  mechanism  and  spirit,  teleology,  evolu- 
tion— the  science  of  sciences.  Divine  Philosophy  rounds 
out  her  calm  survey.  Never  more  tempting,  more  vital, 
the  problem  than  that  which  she  faces  now;  the  problem 
of  the  fundamental  character  of  personality.  "In  the 
light  of  all  this  evolution  or  mutation,  what  is  God?" 
she  asks.  "Is  he,  too,  but  a  cosmic  process  in  which  we 
assist;  or  an  eternal  standard  of  perfection  against  which 
we  measure  ourselves  and  in  terms  of  which  we  strive?" 

An  Indifferent  Generation 

The  world  of  learning  was  never  better  worth  prepar- 
ing for.     Why  is  it,  then,  that  from  every  university  in 


146  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

the  land,  and  from  every  serious  journal,  there  goes  up 
the  cry,  "Our  young  people  were  never  more  indifferent." 

How  many  nights  a  week  does  the  student  spend  in 
pursuits  non-academic;  how  great  a  proportion  of  his 
days?  What  with  so-called  "college  activities,"  by  which 
he  must  prove  his  allegiance  to  the  university,  and  social 
functions  by  which  he  must  recreate  his  jaded  soul,  no 
margin  is  left  for  the  one  and  only  college  activity — ^which 
is  study.  Class  meetings,  business  meetings,  committee 
meetings,  editorial  meetings,  football  rallies,  baseball 
rallies,  pyjama  rallies,  vicarious  athletics  on  the  bleachers, 
garrulous  athletics  in  the  dining-room  and  parlor  and  on 
the  porch,  rehearsals  of  the  glee  club,  rehearsals  of  the 
mandolin  club  and  of  the  banjo,  rehearsals  for  dramatics 
(a  word  to  stand  the  hair  on  end),  college  dances  and  class 
banquets,  fraternity  dances  and  suppers,  preparations  for 
the  dances  and  banquets,  more  committees  for  the  prepa- 
rations; a  running  up  and  down  the  campus  for  ephemeral 
items  for  ephemeral  articles  in  ephemeral  papers,  a  solicit- 
ing of  advertisements,  a  running  up  and  down  for  subscrip- 
tions to  the  dances  and  the  dinners,  and  the  papers  and 
the  clubs;  a  running  up  and  down  in  college  politics, 
making  tickets,  pulling  wires,  adjusting  combinations, 
canvassing  for  votes — canvassing  the  girls  for  votes, 
spending  hours  at  sorority  houses  for  votes — spending 
hours  at  sorority  houses  for  sentiment;  talking  rubbish 
unceasingly,  thinking  rubbish,  revamping  rubbish — rub- 
bish about  high  jinks,  rubbish  about  low,  rubbish  about 
rallies,  rubbish  about  pseudo-civic  honor,  rubbish  about 
girls; — what  margin  of  leisure  is  left  for  the  one  activity 
of  the  college,  which  is  study? 

In  Oxford  and  Cambridge,  than  which  no  universities 
have  turned  out  finer,  cleaner,  more  manly,  more  highly 


IDOLS  147 

cultivated,  and  more  practically  trained  scholars,  states- 
men, empire  builders,  or  more  generous  enthusiasts  for 
general  athletics  and  clean  sport — ^in  Oxford  and  Cam- 
bridge the  purpose  is  study,  and  the  honors  are  paid  to  the 
scholar.  There  are  no  undergraduate  newspapers,  no 
class  meetings,  no  college  politics,  no  football  rallies,  no 
business  managers,  no  claques  for  organized  applause,  no 
yell  leaders,  no  dances,  no  social  functions  of  the  mass. 
Social  intercourse  during  term  between  the  sexes  is  strictly 
forbidden;  and  it  is  a  matter  of  college  loyalty  to  live  up 
to  the  rule.  Of  non-academic  activities  there  are  but  two 
— athletics  and  conversation.  They  are  not  a  function 
but  a  recreation;  nor  are  they  limited  to  spedahsts  whose 
reputation  is  professed.  Young  Oxonians,  in  general, 
lead  a  serene  and  undistracted,  but  rich  and  wholesome 
life.  They  cultivate  athletics  because  each  is  an  active 
devotee  of  some  form  of  sport.  And  conversation — in 
junior  commons,  in  the  informal  clubs,  in  study  or  in 
tutor's  room — it  is  an  education,  a  passion,  an  art. 

The  Bandar-log 

A  foreigner,  attending,  in  an  American  imiversity,  an 
assembly  of  student  speakers,  will  be  justified  in  con- 
cluding that  the  university  exists  for  nothing  but  so-called 
"student  activities."  The  real  purpose  of  the  university 
will  not  be  mentioned,  for  usually  our  undergraduates 
live  two  lives — distinct;  one  utterly  non-academic.  The 
non-academic  is  for  them  the  real;  the  scholarly  an  en- 
croachment. The  student  who  regards  the  scholarly  as 
paramount  is  deficient  in  "allegiance  to  his  university." 

Athletics,  meanwhile,  which  should  play  a  necessary 
part  in  the  physical,  and  therefore  spiritual,  development 
of  all  students,  are  relegated  to  ten  per  cent  of  the  stu- 


148  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

dents.  The  rest  assist — on  the  bleachers.  The  ninety 
per  cent  are  killing  two  birds  with  one  stone.  They  are 
taking  second-hand  exercise;  and,  by  their  grotesque  and 
infantile  applause,  they  are  displaying  what  they  call 
their  "loyalty." 

Those  noctes  ccencBque  deum  of  history  and  poetry  and 
philosophical  discourse,  to  the  memory  of  which  the  older 
generation  reverts  with  rapture,  have  faded  in  this  light 
of  common  day.  In  the  hurry  of  mundane  pursuit  the 
student  rarely  halts  to  read,  rarely  to  consider;  rarely  to 
discuss  the  concerns  of  the  larger  life. 

President  Schurman  has  recently  said  that  there  has 
been  no  decline  of  scholarship  in  the  people's  imiversities; 
but  only  in  the  older  institutions  of  the  East,  to  which 
rich  parents  send  their  sons  with  the  view  to  the  advan- 
tages of  social  position;  and  that  in  the  people's  univer- 
sities the  social  standing  of  students  has  never  cut  so 
much  figure  as  scholarship.  The  assurance  is  comfortable; 
but  it  obscures  the  issue.  If  by  "social  standing"  the 
president  of  Cornell  means  position  in  the  coteries  of 
wealth,  fashion,  conviviality,  it  may  be  that  "social  stand- 
ing" bulks  larger  in  the  older  university  than  in  the  uni- 
versity of  the  state.  But  the  fact  is  that,  in  student 
esteem,  East  and  West,  social  standing  means  no  such 
thing:  it  means  the  position  achieved  by  prominence  in 
non-academic  or  "campus"  activities.  And  in  student 
esteem  such  prominence  cuts  a  far  more  important  figure 
than  that  of  either  wealth  or  scholarship.  Such  promi- 
nence has  been  gaining  ground  for  fifteen  years.  So  long 
as  the  social  pressure  of  the  university  is  toward  mun- 
dane pursuits,  it  will  be  vain  to  expect  the  student  to 
achieve  distinction  in  that  for  which  the  university  stands. 

This   false   standard   of   prominence,  with  its  feigned 


IDOLS  149 

allegiance  to  the  interests  of  the  university,  has  produced 
that  class  of  student  which,  adapting  from  the  Jungle 
Book,  I  call  the  "Bandar-log." 

Mowgli  had  never  seen  an  Indian  city  before,  and  though  this 
was  almost  a  heap  of  ruins  it  seemed  very  wonderful  and  splen- 
did. Some  king  had  built  it  long  ago  on  a  little  hill.  .  .  .  The 
Bandar-logs  called  the  place  their  city,  and  pretended  to  despise 
the  jungle  people  because  they  lived  in  the  forest.  And  yet  they 
never  knew  what  the  buildings  were  made  for  nor  how  to  use  them. 
They  would  sit  in  circles  in  the  hall  of  the  King's  council -chamber 
and  scratch  for  fleas  and  pretend  to  be  men;  or  they  would  run  in 
and  out  of  the  roofless  houses  and  collect  pieces  of  plaster  and 
old  bricks  in  the  corner  and  forget  where  they  had  hidden  them, 
and  fight  and  cry  in  scuffling  crowds,  and  then  break  off  to  play 
up  and  down  the  terraces  of  the  King's  garden,  where  they  would 
shake  the  rose-trees  and  the  oranges  in  sport  to  see  the  fruit  and 
flowers  fall.  They  explored  all  the  passages  and  dark  tunnels  in 
the  palace,  and  the  hundreds  of  little  dark  rooms,  but  they  never 
remembered  what  they  had  seen  and  what  they  had  not,  and  so 
drifted  about  in  ones  and  twos  or  crowds,  telling  one  another  that 
they  were  doing  as  men  did — or  shouting  "there  are  none  in  the 
jungle  so  wise  and  good  and  clever  and  strong  and  gentle  as  the 
Bandar-log."  Then  they  would  tire  and  seek  the  treetop,  hoping 
the  jungle  people  would  notice  them  .  .  .  and  then  they  joined 
hands  and  danced  about  and  sang  their  foolish  songs.  "They 
have  no  law,"  said  Mowgli  to  himself,  "no  hunting  call  and  no 
leaders."  .  .  .  And  he  could  not  help  laughing  when  they  cried, 
"we  are  great,  we  are  free,  we  are  wonderful  ...  we  all  say  so, 
and  so  it  must  be  true  .  .  .  you  shall  carry  our  words  back  to  the 
jungle  people  that  they  may  notice  us  in  future." 

The  Bandar-log  is  with  us.  Busy  to  no  purpose,  imi- 
tative, aimless;  boastful  but  unreUant;  inquisitive  but 
quickly  losing  his  interest;  fitful,  inconsequential,  plati- 
tudinous, forgetful;  noisy,  sudden,  ineffectual. — The  Ban- 
dar-log must  go. 

Because  it  is  the  spirit  of  the  American  university  to 
prove  the  things  that  are  new,  to  hold  fast  that  which  is 


I50  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

good;  to  face  abuses  boldly  and  to  reform  them;  because 
I  am  the  son  of  an  American  university,  and  have  grown 
in  her  teaching,  and  in  my  observation  of  many  imiver- 
sities  and  many  schools,  to  regard  the  evil  as  transitory 
and  abuses  as  remediable,  I  have  ventured  in  this  essay 
to  set  down  simply,  and  with  a  frankness  that  I  trust 
may  not  be  misconstrued,  some  of  the  vagaries  of  our 
educational  system  at  the  present  time,  and  some  of  the 
reasons  for  their  existence.  For  I  am  sure  that  in  the  rec- 
ognition of  the  cause  is  to  be  found  the  means  of  cure. 

The  Man  of  Argos 

Another  class  also  of  students  makes,  though  uncon- 
sciously, for  the  wane  of  general  scholarship — the  class 
of  the  prematurely  vocational.  It  is  not  futile,  Hke  that 
of  the  Bandar-log,  but  earnest,  and  with  a  definite  end  in 
view.  Still,  unwisely  guided  to  immature  choice  and 
hasty  study  of  a  profession,  it  not  only  misses  the  liberal 
equipment  necessary  for  the  ultimate  mastery  of  life,  but 
indirectly  diverts  the  general  scope  of  education  from  its 
true  ideals. 

The  spirit  of  the  Renaissance,  says  a  modern  historian 
of  poetry,  is  portrayed  in  a  picture  by  Moretto.  It  is  of  a 
young  Venetian  noble.  "The  face  is  that  of  one  in  the 
full  prime  of  life  and  of  great  physical  strength;  very 
handsome,  heavy  and  yet  tremulously  sensitive,  the  large 
eyes  gazing  at  some  thing  unseen,  and  seeming  to  dream 
of  vastness.  On  his  bonnet  is  a  golden  plaque  with  three 
words  of  Greek  inscribed  on  it — lov  \Cav  irodw — "Oh,  but 
I  am  consumed  with  excess  of  desire." 

If  this  be  the  motto  of  the  Renaissance,  what  shall  we 
say  is  the  motto  of  to-day?  Not  lov  \iav  voOw;  no  creed 
of  vague  insatiable  yearning,  but  rather  the  irdvra  avrUa 


IDOLS  151 

irod(a — the  lust  for  immediate  and  imiversal  possession: 
as  who  should  cry, 

"I  want  no  little  here  below, 
I  want  it  all,  and  quick." 

In  one  of  his  odes,  Pindar,  lauding  the  older  times  when 
the  Muse  had  not  yet  learned  to  work  for  hire,  breaks  off 
"but  now  she  biddeth  us  observe  the  saying  of  the  Man  of 
Argos,  'Money  maketh  man'  " — 'xprnxara,  xprj/iaT  avqp. 
If  not  money,  then  sudden  success — that  is  the  criterion 
of  the  Man  of  Argos  to-day. 

The  Bandar-log  and  the  Argive  retard  the  advance  of 
scholarship  in  the  university;  and  not  the  university  alone 
is  responsible  for  their  presence,  but  the  elementary  school 
as  well. 

[Note. — There  follow  here  two  sections  treating  of  the  lax  conditions 
in  our  secondary  schools  consequent  on  the  overwhelming  demand  for 
education.  This  "advance  of  democracy,"  a  splendid  sign  itself,  creates 
new  ideals,  but  it  also  sets  up  certain  idols  in  the  university.] 

Idols  of  the  Tribe 

Roger  Bacon,  long  ago,  and  after  him,  Francis,  in  their 
quest  of  truth,  perceived  that  there  were  four  grounds  of 
human  error.  Of  these  the  first  is  "the  false  appearances 
that  are  imposed  upon  us  by  the  general  nature  of  the 
mind"  of  man.  The  mind  is  always  prone  to  accept  the 
affirmative  or  active  as  proof  rather  than  the  negative; 
so  that  if  you  hit  the  mark  a  few  times  you  forget  the  many 
that  you  missed  it.  You  worship  Neptune  for  the  numer- 
ous pictures  in  his  temple  of  those  that  escaped  shipwreck, 
but  you  omit  to  ask:  "Where  are  the  pictures  of  those 
that  were  drowned?"  And  because  you  are  mentally 
equipped  to  seek  uniformity,  you  ascribe  to  "Nature  a 
greater  equality  and  uniformity  than  is,  in  truth."    In 


152  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

this  refractory  mind  of  man  "the  beams  of  things"  do  not 
"reflect  according  to  their  true  incidence";  hence  our 
fundamental  superstitions,  fallacies  which  Francis  Bacon 
calls  the  Idols,  or  delusions,  of  the  Race,  or  Tribe. 

In  matters  of  education  the  dearest  delusion  of  our 
Tribe  to-day  is  that  the  university  should  reflect  the  public. 
This  is  the  idol  of  the  Popular  Voice.  Once  the  university 
is  joined  to  this  idol,  it  is  joined  to  all  the  idols  of  that 
Pantheon.  It  accepts  the  fallacy  that  our  sons  and 
daughters  are  equally  gifted  and  zealous,  and  hence  that 
each  must  profit  by  the  higher  education.  This  is  the 
idol  of  Inevitable  Grace;  that  is,  of  grace  innate  and  ir- 
resistible by  which  every  youth  is  predestinated  to  intel- 
lectual life,  "without  any  foresight  of  faith  or  good  works, 
or  perseverance  in  either  of  them,  or  any  other  thing  in 
the  creature,  as  conditions  or  causes  moving  him  there- 
unto," or  anything  in  the  tutor.  No  Calvinistic  favor 
this,  by  which  some  are  chosen  while  others  are  ordained  to 
ignorance  and  sloth;  but  a  favor  not  contemplated  in  the 
Westminster  Confession,  by  which  all  are  elect  and  all, 
in  due  season,  effectually  called  to  learning,  and  quick- 
ened and  renewed  by  the  Spirit  of  Zeal,  and  so  enabled 
to  answer  this  call  and  embrace  the  Grace  offered  and 
conveyed  in  it.  The  university  is  then  joined  to  the  idol 
of  Numbers.  And  of  these  worships  the  shibboleth  is 
"mediocrity":  for  to  raise  the  standard  of  imiversity  re- 
quirement is  to  discriminate  between  candidates,  and  to 
doubt  Inevitable  Grace;  while  to  decrease  the  bloated 
registration  is  a  sacrilege  which  Numbers  will  avenge  with 
curtailment  of  prosperity.  And  the  ritual  march  is  by 
lock-step:  for  tests,  competition,  and  awards  are  alien  to 
the  American  spirit  thus  misrepresented — save  athletic 
competition:  that  is  a  divine  exception. 


IDOLS  153 

The  university  is  next  joined  to  the  idol  of  Quick  Re- 
turns. It  accepts  the  fallacy  of  utilitarian  purpose;  and 
hence,  that  a  profession  must  be  chosen  prematurely  and 
immaturely  entered;  and  hence  that  studies  are  not  for 
discipline  or  intrinsic  worth,  but  from  the  primary  school 
to  the  Ph.D.,  for  purely  vocational  value;  and  hence  that 
every  incipient  vocation  from  making  toy  boats  and  paper 
mats  to  making  tariffs  and  balloons  must  find  its  place  in 
every  school  and  in  every  grade  for  every  man  or  woman 
child.  And  since  the  man  or  woman  child  may  find  per- 
chance a  vocation  in  the  liberal  arts,  the  child  must  be- 
stride both  horses,  though  with  the  usual  aerial  result. 

And  our  students — they  worship  the  idol  of  Incidental 
Issues:  the  fallacy  that  the  aim  of  the  university  is  deliber- 
ately to  make  character.  As  if  character  were  worth 
anything  without  mind,  and  were  any  other,  as  President 
Wilson  has  wisely  said,  than  the  by-product  of  duty 
performed;  or  that  the  duty  of  the  student  were  any 
other  than  to  study.  They  accept  the  fallacy  that  the 
gauge  of  studentship  is  popularity,  and  that  popularity 
during  academic  years  is  to  be  won  by  hasty  achievement 
and  the  babbling  strenuous  life,  by  allegiance  to  a  per- 
verted image  of  the  Alma  Mater,  by  gregariousness,  by 
playing  at  citizenship.  Of  this  popularity  the  outward 
and  visible  index  is  mundane  prominence  and  the  lightly 
proffered  laurel  of  the  campus. 

I  said  that  the  dearest  delusion  of  the  Tribe  was  that 
the  university  should  reflect  the  public.  But  this  delusion 
requires  also  that  our  universities  he  continually  figuring  in 
the  public  eye.  So  far  as  such  activity  is  necessary  to  the 
building  up  of  schools,  and  to  the  education  of  a  community 
to  an  understanding  of  the  ideals  and  the  needs  of  higher 


154  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

education,  it  is  not  only  legitimate  but  laudable.  But 
when,  under  the  name  of  imiversity  extension,  our  uni- 
versities undertake  the  higher  education  of  the  periphery, 
in  dilettantism  or  methods  of  research,  they  run  the  risk 
of  university  attenuation  and  simulation.  When,  not 
dispassionately,  they  figure  in  public  issues,  they  lay 
themselves  open  to  the  charge  of  partisanship.  Time  was 
when  academic  etiquette  forbade  the  imiversity  professor 
to  participate  in  poUtical  contests.  Now  there  are  who 
dare  to  inject  the  university  into  prejudiced  affairs;  even 
into  criminal  cases  pending  in  the  courts.  They  have 
joined  themselves  to  the  idol  of  Parade. 

To  this  same  false  policy  of  figuring  in  the  public  eye 
our  universities  bow  when  they  sanction  amphitheatrical 
spectacles,  at  some  of  which  money  enough  passes  hands 
to  build  a  battleship.  Football  is  a  most  desirable  recrea- 
tion, and  a  moral  and  physical  discipline  of  value  to  every 
able-bodied  boy.  Nay,  more,  athletics,  physical  sport,  and 
emulation  are  necessary  to  spiritual  health.  Even  excess 
in  them  is  better,  it  has  often  been  said,  than  that  moral 
evil  should  abound.  But  is  the  alternative  necessary? 
Must  we  have  either  gladiators  or  degenerates?  Need 
athletics  be  professionalized,  be  specialized?  Do  special- 
ized athletics  benefit  the  morals  of  the  ninety  and  nine 
who  don't  play?  Do  they  not  rather  spoil  sport,  detract 
from  time  and  tendency  to  exercise  for  oneself?  Do 
they  not  substitute  hysteria  for  muscular  development? 
Football  is  a  noble  game;  but  it  is  with  disgust  that  one 
views  its  degeneration  from  an  exhilarating  pastime  for 
all  into  a  profession  of  the  few,  a  source  of  newspaper 
notoriety,  a  cause  of  extravagance,  orgiastic  self-abandon- 
ment, and  educational  shipwreck.  This  comes  of  bowing 
to  the  idol  of  Parade. 


IDOLS  155 

The  university  should  not  adopt  the  idols  of  the  com- 
munity. It  should  set  the  ideals.  The  American  uni- 
versity is,  and  ever  must  be,  democratic.  It  offers  edu- 
cation to  all  who  can  profit  by  it.  But  education  itself 
is  aristocratic — of  the  best  and  for  the  best.  The  educated 
are  those  who,  having  striven,  are  the  chosen  few. 

Idols  of  the  Academic  Market-Place 

Bewildered  by  the  advance  of  democracy,  educators 
not  only  have  accepted  fallacies  of  the  Tribe,  but  have  at- 
tempted to  justify  their  acceptance  by  further  fallacies  of 
their  own — based  some  upon  a  juggling  with  words,  others 
upon  the  authority  of  some  Pundit  (living  or  dead),  others 
upon  individual  ignorance  and  conceit.  These  are,  re- 
spectively, what  Bacon  has  called  the  idols  of  the  Market- 
place, the  idols  of  the  Lecture-room  or  Theatre,  the  idols 
of  the  Cave. 

Idols  of  the  Market-place  are  fallacies  proceeding  from 
the  misconception  of  words.  Since  we  educators  are  an 
imitative  race,  many  of  these  misconceptions  have  been 
fostered  or  confirmed  by  the  influence  of  some  great  name, 
Rousseau,  or  Froebel,  or  Jacotot,  or  another;  that  is  to 
say,  by  authority.  Consequently,  the  idols  of  the  Market- 
place are  sometimes  also  idols  of  the  Theatre,  which  is  to 
say,  of  the  Lecture-room,  or  master  by  whose  words  we 
swear. 

"He  that  will  write  well  in  any  tongue  must  follow  this 
counsel  of  Aristotle,  to  speak  as  the  common  people  speak, 
but  think  as  wise  men  think."  From  disregard  of  such 
counsel,  many  of  our  academic  fallacies  concerning  educa- 
tion have  arisen.  We  are  involved  in  questions  and  dif- 
ferences because  we  have  followed  the  false  appearances 


156  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

of  words,  instead  of  setting  down  in  the  beginning  the 
definitions  in  which  as  wise  men  we  may  concur.  In 
what  definition  of  education  is  it  possible  that  wise  men 
may  concur?  All  will  agree  that  education  is  a  process: 
not  that  of  play,  nor  yet  of  work,  but  of  artistic  activity. 
Play  meanders  pleasantly  toward  an  external  end  of  no 
significance.  Work  drives  straight  for  an  end  beyond,  that 
is  pleasant  because  of  its  worth.  The  process  of  Art  has 
an  end  but  not  beyond.  Its  end  is  in  itself;  and  it  is 
pleasurable  in  its  activity  because  its  true  activity  is  a 
result.  From  play  the  artistic  process  differs  because  its 
end  is  significant;  from  work  it  differs  because  its  end  is 
in  its  activity,  and  because  its  activity  possesses  the  plea- 
sure of  worth.  It  is  like  religion:  a  process  continually 
begun,  and  in  its  incompleteness  complete.  Its  ideal  is 
incapable  of  temporal  fulfilment,  but  still,  in  each  moment 
of  development,  it  is  spiritually  perfect. 

Education,  then,  is  an  art — the  art  of  the  individual 
realizing  himself  as  a  member  of  a  society  whose  taber- 
nacle is  here,  but  whose  home  is  a  house  not  built  with 
hapds.  Education  is  the  process  of  knowing  the  best, 
enjoying  the  best,  producing  the  best  in  knowledge,  con- 
duct, and  the  arts.  Realization,  expression  of  self,  physical, 
intellectual,  social,  emotional,  is  its  means  and  end.  It 
impUes  faith  in  a  moral  order  and  continuing  process,  of 
which  it  is  itself  an  integral  and  active  part. 

It  is  remarkable  with  what  persistency  the  race  of  edu- 
cators has  indulged  extremes.  There  has  been  accorded 
from  time  to  time  an  apostle  of  the  golden  mean.  But 
his  disciples  have  ever  proceeded  to  the  ulterior  limit: 
Among  the  ancients  to  the  pole  of  self-culture  or  to  the 
pole  of  uncultured  service;  in  the  Dark  Ages  to  the  ideal  of 
the  cloister  or  the  ideal  of  the  castle,  to  joyless  learning 


IDOLS  157 

or  to  feudal,  and  feminine,  approval;  in  the  Middle  Ages 
to  the  bigotry  of  the  obscurantist  or  the  allurement  of  the 
material;  in  the  Renaissance  to  contempt  of  the  ancients 
or  to  neo-paganism — to  theological  quibbles  or  to  Cas- 
tiglione,  to  the  bonfire  of  vanities  or  the  carnal  songs  of 
Lorenzo;  in  the  Reformation,  to  compulsory  discipline  or 
the  apotheosis  of  natural  freedom;  in  the  succeeding  age 
to  pedantry  or  deportment.  Still  later  appear  Rousseau 
and  the  philanthropists  with  the  "return  to  nature,"  the 
worship  of  individuahty,  the  methods  of  coddUng  and 
play;  and  then  Jacotot — and  the  equal  fitness  of  all  for 
higher  education,  the  exaggeration  of  inductive  methods, 
the  chimerical  equivalence  of  studies.  And  now  has  ar- 
rived the  subordination  of  the  art  to  pure  profit,  or  vaude- 
ville, or  seminars  for  sucklings. 

Always  the  fallacy  of  the  extreme ! — If  education  is  not 
for  the  fit  it  must  be  for  imbeciles;  if  not  for  culture,  for 
Mammon;  if  not  for  knowledge,  for  power;  if  not  of  in- 
cunabula, of  turbines  and  limericks;  if  not  by  the  cat-o'- 
nine-tails,  by  gum-drops.  Why  the  mean  of  a  Plato  or  a 
Quintihan  could  not  obtain — the  sanity  of  Melanchthon 
or  Erasmus,  of  Sturm  or  Comenius,  of  Milton  or  the  Port 
Royal,  of  Pestalozzi,  Friedrich  Wolf,  or  Thomas  Arnold, — 
Heaven  only  knows,  which  in  its  imscrutable  purpose  has 
permitted  the  race  of  educators,  following  the  devices  of 
their  own  heart,  to  go  astray  after  idols. 

To  know,  to  feel,  to  do  aright  and  best,  each  and  all 
in  all  and  each  of  the  fields  of  human  activity,  that  is  the 
art  of  education. 

If  we  exaggerate  one  of  these  functions  to  the  neglect 
of  the  rest,  our  education  is  no  longer  an  ideal  but  an  idol. 
If,  forgetting  that  education  is  an  art,  we  try  to  make  of 


158     COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

it  a  pleasant  meandering,  we  set  up  the  idol  of  Play.  If, 
forgetting  that  the  activity  of  Art  is  of  intrinsic  value 
and  delight,  we  glorify  the  empty  means  and  merit  of 
drudgery,  then  we  have  erected  the  idol  of  Pedantry: 
we  beat  the  air  for  discipUne,  shuffle  in  and  out  of  corners 
the  straw  of  arid  learning,  and  choke  ourselves  with  the 
dust  of  our  own  sweeping.  If  we  fix  our  eyes  on  the  cash, 
we  bow  to  the  tribal  idol  of  Quick  Returns.  If  we  forget 
that,  as  an  art,  there  is  for  education  a  progressive  ideal 
and  a  law  of  progress,  too,  we  bow  to  the  idol  of  Caprice. 
We  fall  not  only  into  the  fallacies  already  enumerated 
but  into  the  fallacy  of  the  equivalence  of  studies,  the 
fallacy  of  shifting,  the  fallacy  of  dissipation.  In  Art  each 
factor  is  in  relation  to  the  rest,  and  all  to  the  whole:  we 
proceed  fatuously  upon  the  assumption  that  the  part  is 
the  whole;  and  therefore  each  part  equal  to  each;  and 
therefore  one  study  as  good  as  any  other.  In  Art  the 
means,  which  is  the  end,  is  relative,  progressive:  we  as- 
sume comfortably  that  studies  are  independent  of  each 
other,  that  we  can  take  any  in  any  order,  pass  an  examina- 
tion and  have  done.  In  Art  the  end,  which  is  the  means, 
is  absolute  and  self -referred  and  ideal:  we  figure  that, 
by  dissipating  our  energies,  we  shall  happen  to  hit,  here 
and  now,  the  ideal.  Disregarding  the  progressive  unity 
of  education  we  bow  to  Caprice. 

The  idols  of  the  academic  market-place  to-day  are 
Caprice  and  Quick  Returns  and  Play,  and,  in  unexpected 
corners.  Pedantry,  against  which  in  reaction  these  three 
were  set  up.  Of  these,  Quick  Returns  was  borrowed 
from  the  tribe;  and  not  alone,  for  of  this  subvention  are 
other  tribal  gods  too  numerous  to  rehearse — specially 
Numbers  and  Inevitable  Grace  and  Incidental  Issues  and 
Parade.     To  one  or  other  of  these  false  worships  are  due 


IDOLS  159 

the  wane  of  scholarship,  the  utilitarian  tendency,  the 
excrescence  of  non-academic  activities,  the  neglected  dis- 
cipline in  our  education  at  the  present  time. 

[Note. — "The  blame,"  Professor  Gayley  continues,  "is  by  no  means 
wholly  to  be  laid  at  the  door  of  the  university.  It  attaches,  also,  to  our 
system  of  elementary  education."  The  book  discusses  other  idols  of  educa- 
tion, and  then  goes  on  to  propose  remedies.  "  Some  of  the  remedies  have 
already  been  implied.  Others,  knowing  that  it  is  not  the  better  part  of 
valor,  I  shall  venture  to  suggest.  Having  heard  that  Ephraim  was  joined 
to  his  idols,  I  have  not  let  him  alone.  I  have  committed  the  indiscretion 
of  writing  a  book  about  him — a  Zoar  of  a  book,  to  be  sure;  but  then,  I 
have  laid  myself  open.  If  now,  in  addition,  I  write  of  ideals,  what  will 
Ephraim  call  them?"  Part  of  the  answer  to  this  question  is,  as  Professor 
Gayley  says,  already  in  our  minds.  His  complete  discussion  of  it  could  be 
read  with  great  interest  by  all  college  men  and  women.] 


XI 

AN  ADDRESS  TO  FRESHMEN  * 

WILLIAM  DE  WITT  HYDE 

A  graduate  of  Christ  Church  College,  Oxford,  recently 
remarked  to  me:  "One  can  have  such  a  good  time  at 
Oxford,  that  it's  a  great  waste  of  opportunity  to  work." 
The  humor  of  this  remark,  however,  was  turned  to  pathos 
when  his  wife  told  me  sadly  that:  "An  Oxford  training  does 
not  fit  a  man  for  anything.  There  is  absolutely  nothing 
my  husband  can  do";  and  then  I  learned  that  the  only 
thing  this  thirty-year-old  husband  and  father  had  ever 
done  was  to  hold  a  sinecure  political  office,  which  he  lost 
when  the  Conservative  party  went  out  of  power;  and  the 
only  thing  he  ever  expected  to  do  was  to  loaf  about  summer 
resorts  in  summer,  and  winter  resorts  in  winter,  imtil  his 
father  should  die  and  leave  him  the  estate.  Fortunately, 
American  society  does  not  tolerate  in  its  sons  so  worthless 
a  career;  yet  the  philosophy  of  college  life  which  was  behind 
that  worthlessness,  translated  into  such  phrases  as  "Don't 
let  your  studies  interfere  with  your  college  life,"  and  "C 
is  a  gentleman's  grade,"  is  coming  to  prevail  in  certain 
academic  circles  in  America. 

Put  your  studies  first;  and  that  for  three  reasons:  First, 
you  will  have  a  better  time  in  college.  Hard  work  is  a 
necessary  background  for  the  enjoyment  of  everything  else. 

•  Delivered  to  the  incoming  class  at  Bowdoin  College  in  1908.  Reprinted 
through  the  courtesy  of  William  De  Witt  Hyde  and  of  The  Independent. 

160 


AN  ADDRESS  TO  FRESHMEN  i6i 

Second,  after  the  first  three  months  you  will  stand  better 
with  your  fellows.  At  first  there  will  appear  to  be  cheaper 
roads  to  distinction,  but  their  cheapness  is  soon  found  out. 
Scholarship  alone  will  not  give  you  the  highest  standing 
with  your  fellows;  but  you  will  not  get  their  highest  re- 
spect without  showing  that  you  can  do  well  something  that 
is  intellectually  difficult.  Third,  your  future  career  depends 
upon  it.  On  a  little  card,  five  by  eight  inches,  every  grade 
you  get  is  recorded.  Four  or  eight  years  hence,  when  you 
are  looking  for  business  or  professional  openings,  that 
record  will,  to  some  extent,  determine  your  start  in  life. 
But  you  are  making  a  more  permanent  record  than  that 
upon  the  card;  you  are  writing  in  the  nerve-cells  and  films 
of  your  brain  habits  of  accuracy,  thoroughness,  order, 
power,  or  their  opposites;  and  twenty,  thirty,  forty  years 
hence  that  record  will  make  or  mar  your  success  in  what- 
ever you  undertake. 

Make  up  your  minds,  then,  to  take  a  rank  of  A  in  some 
subject,  at  least  B  in  pretty  nearly  everything,  and  nothing 
lower  than  C  in  anything.  If  you  ask  why  I  place  such 
stress  upon  these  letters  let  me  tell  you  what  they  mean. 

A  means  that  you  have  grasped  a  subject;  thought  about 
it;  reacted  upon  it;  made  it  your  own;  so  that  you  can  give 
it  out  again  with  the  stamp  of  your  individual  insight 
upon  it. 

B  means  that  you  have  taken  it  in,  and  can  give  it  out 
again  in  the  same  form  in  which  it  came  to  you.  In  de- 
tails, what  you  say  and  write  sounds  like  what  the  A  man 
says  and  writes;  but  the  words  come  from  the  book  or  the 
teacher,  not  from  you.  No  B  man  can  ever  make  a  scholar; 
he  will  be  a  receiver  rather  than  a  giver,  a  creature  rather 
than  a  creator,  to  the  end  of  his  days. 

C  means  the  same  as  B,  only  that  your  second-hand 


i62  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

information  is  partial  and  fragmentary,  rather  than  com- 
plete. 

D  means  that  you  have  been  exposed  to  a  subject  often 
enough  and  long  enough  to  leave  on  the  plate  of  your 
memory  a  few  faint  traces,  which  the  charity  of  the  ex- 
aminer is  able  to  identify.  Poor  and  pitiful  as  such  an 
exhibition  is,  we  allow  a  limited  number  of  D's  to  count 
toward  a  degree. 

E  means  total  failure.  Two  E's  bring  a  letter  to  your 
parents,  stating  that  if  the  college  were  to  allow  you  to 
remain  longer,  imder  the  impression  that  you  are  getting 
an  education,  it  would  be  receiving  money  under  false 
pretenses. 

Please  keep  these  definitions  in  mind,  and  send  a  copy 
to  your  parents  for  reference  when  the  reports  come  home. 

Whatever  you  do,  do  not  try  to  cheat  in  examinations 
or  written  work.  If  you  succeed,  you  write  fraud,  fraud, 
fraud,  all  over  your  diploma;  and  if  you  get  caught — there 
will  be  no  diploma  for  you. 

Your  own  interest  and  taste  are  so  much  more  impor- 
tant factors  than  any  cut-and-dried  scheme  of  symmetrical 
development,  that  we  leave  you  free  to  choose  your  studies. 
At  the  same  time,  the  subjects  open  to  choice  are  so  limited 
by  conflict  of  hours,  and  the  requirement  of  a  major  and 
minors,  that  you  can  hardly  miss  the  two  essentials  of  wise 
choice;  the  consecutive,  prolonged,  concentrated  pursuit 
of  one  or  two  main  subjects,  and  some  slight  acquaintance 
with  each  of  the  three  great  human  interests — language 
and  literature,  mathematics  and  science,  and  history, 
economics,  and  philosophy. 

Having  put  study  first,  college  life  is  a  close  second. 
College  is  a  world  artificially  created  for  the  express  pur- 
pose of  your  development  and  enjoyment.    You  little 


AN  ADDRESS  TO  FRESHMEN  163 

dream  how  rich  and  varied  it  is.  I  was  myself  surprised 
in  looking  over  the  record  of  the  last  senior  class  to  find 
that  the  members  of  that  class  won  four  hundred  and 
sixty-seven  kinds  of  connection  and  distinction,  of  sufficient 
importance  to  be  printed  in  the  official  records  of  college 
achievement.  On  the  other  hand,  I  was  a  little  disap- 
pointed to  find  that  one  hundred  and  forty-two  of  these 
distinctions  were  taken  by  five  men,  showing  that  the  law, 
"to  him  that  hath  shall  be  given,"  applies  in  college  as 
well  as  out  of  it.  Some  colleges,  like  Wellesley,  have  at- 
tempted to  limit  the  number  of  these  non-academic  points 
an  individual  student  may  win. 

Aim  to  win  some  of  these  distinctions,  but  not  too  many. 
Concentrate  on  a  few  for  which  you  care  most.  Do  you 
ask  what  they  are? 

There  are  eight  fraternities,  each  with  its  own  chapter 
house  and  its  committees  for  the  control  of  its  own  affairs; 
twelve  sectional  clubs,  covering  most  of  the  geographical 
divisions  from  which  students  come;  a  Christian  Associ- 
ation, of  which  a  majority  of  the  students,  and  a  much 
larger  majority  of  the  best  fellows  among  them,  are  mem- 
bers, and  which  every  one  of  you  ought  to  join  who  wants 
help  and  support  in  living  the  life  you  know  you  ought  to 
live,  and  is  willing  to  give  help  and  support  to  others  in 
living  the  Christian  life  in  college.  There  is  the  Deutscher 
Verein,  the  Rumania,  the  History  Club,  the  Good  Gov- 
ernment Club,  the  Chemical  Club,  devoted  to  their  special 
subjects;  the  Ibis,  which  represents  the  combination  of 
high  scholarship  and  good  fellowship,  and  whose  members, 
together  with  the  imdergraduate  members  of  Phi  Beta 
Kappa,  are  ex-officio  members  of  the  Faculty  Club,  a 
literary  club  composed  of  members  of  the  faculty  and 
their  families. 


i64  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE       ^ 

There  is  the  Interfraternity  Council;  the  Athletic  Coun- 
cil; the  Debating  Council;  there  is  the  Glee  Club;  the 
Mandolin  Club;  the  Chapel  Choir;  the  College  Band;  the 
Dramatic  Club;  the  Press  Club;  the  Republican  Club;  the 
Democratic  Club.  We  have  three  papers — the  Quill  for 
literature,  the  Orient  for  college  news,  the  Bugle  for  college 
records  and  college  humor. 

Besides,  there  are  pubUc  functions  with  their  manage- 
ment and  their  subjects;  rallies,  banquets,  assembhes,  Ivy 
Day,  Class  Day,  college  teas,  fraternity  house  parties. 

Last,  but  not  least,  come  athletics — baseball,  football, 
track,  tennis,  hockey,  fencing,  gymnastics,  cross-country 
running,  with  first  and  second  teams,  captains,  managers, 
and  assistant  managers. 

With  all  these  positions  open  to  you  in  these  four  years, 
every  one  of  you  ought  to  find  opportunity  for  association 
with  your  fellows  in  congenial  pursuits,  and  training  in 
leadership  and  responsibility  in  the  conduct  of  affairs. 

As  I  said  at  the  outset,  taken  apart  from  study  these 
things  are  trivial,  and  absorption  in  them  amounts  to  little 
more  than  mental  dissipation;  but  taken  in  their  proper 
relation  to  study,  which  is  your  main  purpose  here,  the 
social  experience  and  capacity  for  leadership  they  give 
are  so  valuable  that  if  you  take  no  responsible  and  effec- 
tive part  in  them,  you  miss  the  pleasantest,  and  in  some 
respects  the  most  profitable,  part  of  what  the  college  offers 
you. 

I  suppose  I  ought  to  say  a  word  about  college  tempta- 
tions, though  the  man  who  enters  heartily  into  his  studies 
and  these  college  activities  will  not  be  much  troubled  by 
them.  That  is  the  case  with  nine-tenths  of  the  men  who 
come  here.  But  in  every  class  there  is  a  weaker  five  or  ten 
per  cent,  and  I  suppose  this  class  of  191 2  is  no  exception. 


AN  ADDRESS  TO  FRESHMEN  165 

I  suppose  there  are  half  a  dozen  of  you  who  are  already 
addicted  to  vicious  practises,  and  half  a  dozen  more  weak 
fellows,  who  are  only  waiting  for  some  one  to  show  them 
the  ways  before  they  fall  into  them.  I  do  not  know  yet 
who  you  are;  but  within  three  months  everybody  here  will 
know.  Then  we  shall  first  do  our  best  to  change  your 
plans;  and  if  that  fails,  we  shall  promptly  ask  you  to  with- 
draw. You  all  know  what  these  temptations  are :  they  are 
the  temptations  of  youth  everywhere — smoking,  drinking, 
gambUng,  and  licentiousness. 

To  begin  with  the  least  serious.  There  is  nothing  in- 
trinsically evil  in  the  inhalation  and  exhalation  of  smoke. 
Among  mature  men,  some  are  seriously  injured  by  it; 
some  apparently  suffer  little  harm.  Almost  all  youth  of 
your  age  are  seriously  injured  by  it. 

In  the  first  place,  it  weakens  your  heart  and  makes 
your  nerves  unsteady.  In  the  second  place,  it  destroys 
your  power  of  mental  concentration  and  makes  you 
scatter-brained.  These  evils  are  generally  recognized. 
The  most  serious  consequence  is  not  so  well  understood. 
The  habitual  smoker  tends  to  become  content  with  him- 
self as  he  is;  he  ceases  to  wrestle  earnestly  with  moral  and 
spiritual  problems;  falls  out  of  the  struggle  to  be  con- 
tinually rising  to  heights  hitherto  unattained.  For  the 
man  who  has  attained  his  moral  growth  (if  such  there  are) 
it  is  not  so  serious;  but  for  the  youth  of  eighteen  or  twenty 
it  means  arrested  spiritual  development,  and  an  easy- 
going compromise  instead  of  the  more  strenuous  ideals. 
As  you  go  up  in  a  college  class,  the  proportion  of  smokers 
falls;  as  you  go  down,  it  rises.  While  the  college  does  not 
make  smoking  directly  a  subject  of  discipline,  it  is  no  mere 
coincidence  that  nineteen  out  of  every  twenty  students 
whom  we  send  away  for  either  low  scholarship  or  bad  con- 


i66  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

duct  are  inveterate  smokers.  If  you  train  for  an  athletic 
team,  you  have  to  stop  smoking  while  training;  if  you  are 
in  the  most  earnest  training  for  life,  you  will  leave  it  off 
altogether. 

Drinking,  however  excusable  a  consolation  for  hard- 
worked  men  of  meagre  mental  and  social  resources,  is  in- 
excusable in  young  men  with  such  a  wealth  of  physical, 
intellectual,  and  social  stimulus  about  them  as  college  life 
affords.  All  the  fraternities,  of  their  own  accord,  exclude 
it  from  their  chapter  houses.  Any  student  who  injures 
himself  or  others  by  this  abuse  is  liable  to  be  requested  to 
leave  college  in  consequence. 

Gambling  is  so  utterly  inconsistent  with  the  purpose 
for  which  you  come  here,  and,  when  once  started,  spreads 
so  insidiously,  that  we  always  remove  a  student  from  col- 
lege as  soon  as  we  discover  that  he  is  addicted  to  the 
practise. 

Licentiousness  involves  such  a  hardening  of  the  heart  of 
the  offender,  such  an  antisocial  attitude  toward  its  vic- 
tims, and  brings  such  scandal  on  the  institution,  that 
"notorious  and  evil  livers"  in  this  respect  are  quietly,  but 
firmly,  removed  at  the  end  of  an  early  year  or  term. 

Li  dealing  with  these  offenses,  we  hold  no  legal  trial;  we 
offer  no  formal  proof  of  specific  acts;  we  do  not  always 
succeed  in  convincing  either  students  or  parents  of  the 
justice  of  our  action.  In  a  little  community  Uke  this, 
where  everybody  is  intensely  interested  in  everybody 
else,  we  know  with  absolute  certainty;  and,  while  we  can- 
not always  make  public  the  nature  and  source  of  our  knowl- 
edge, we  act  upon  that  knowledge.  If  this  seems  arbi- 
trary, if  any  one  of  you  does  not  wish  to  take  his  chance 
of  summary  dismissal,  without  formal  proof  of  specific 
charges,  on  any  of  these  grounds,  he  would  do  well  to  with- 


AN  ADDRESS  TO  FRESHMEN  167 

draw  voluntarily  at  the  outset.  This  is  our  way  of  dealing 
with  these  matters,  and  you  have  fair  warning  in  advance. 
Such  is  college  work;  college  Ufe;  college  temptation, 
A  million  dollars  in  buildings  and  equipment;  another 
million  of  endowment;  the  services  of  a  score  of  trained, 
devoted  teachers;  the  fellowship  of  himdreds  of  alumni, 
fellow  students  and  younger  brothers  who  will  follow  in 
the  years  to  come;  the  name  and  fame,  the  traditions  and 
influence  of  this  ancient  seat  of  learning;  the  rich  and 
varied  physical,  intellectual,  and  social  life  among  your- 
selves; all  are  freely  yours  on  the  single  condition  that  you 
use  them  for  your  own  good,  and  to  the  harm  of  no  one  else. 


XII 

KNOWLEDGE  VIEWED  IN  RELATION  TO 
LEARNING  ^ 

JOHN  HENRY  NEWMAN 
I 

It  were  well  if  the  English,  like  the  Greek  language, 
possessed  some  definite  word  to  express,  simply  and  gen- 
erally, intellectual  proficiency  or  perfection,  such  as 
"health,"  as  used  with  reference  to  the  animal  frame,  and 
"virtue,"  with  reference  to  our  moral  nature.  I  am  not 
able  to  find  such  a  term; — talent,  ability,  genius,  belong 
distinctly  to  the  raw  material,  which  is  the  subject-matter, 
not  to  that  excellence  which  is  the  result  of  exercise  and 
training.  When  we  turn,  indeed,  to  the  particular  kinds 
of  intellectual  perfection,  words  are  forthcoming  for  our 
purpose,  as,  for  instance,  judgment,  taste,  and  skill;  yet 
even  these  belong,  for  the  most  part,  to  powers  or  habits 
bearing  upon  practise  or  upon  art,  and  not  to  any  per- 
fect condition  of  the  intellect,  considered  in  itself.  Wis- 
dom, again,  is  certainly  a  more  comprehensive  word 
than  any  other,  but  it  has  a  direct  relation  to  conduct, 
and  to  hiunan  life.  Knowledge,  indeed,  and  science 
express  purely  intellectual  ideas,  but  still  not  a  state 
or  quality  of  the  intellect;  for  knowledge,  in  its  ordinary 
sense,  is  but  one  of  its  circumstances,  denoting  a  posses- 
sion or  a  habit;  and  science  has  been  appropriated  to 

'  From  The  Idea  oj  a  University,  part  I,  discourse  VI. 
1 68 


KNOWLEDGE  AND  LEARNING  169 

the  subject-matter  of  the  intellect,  instead  of  belonging 
in  English,  as  it  ought  to  do,  to  the  intellect  itself.  The 
consequence  is  that,  on  an  occasion  like  this,  many  words 
are  necessary,  in  order,  first,  to  bring  out  and  convey 
what  surely  is  no  difficult  idea  in  itself, — that  of  the 
cultivation  of  the  intellect  as  an  end;  next,  in  order  to 
recommend  what  surely  is  no  imreasonable  object;  and 
lastly,  to  describe  and  make  the  mind  realize  the  particular 
perfection  in  which  that  object  consists.  Every  one  knows 
practically  what  are  the  constituents  of  health  or  of  virtue, 
and  every  one  recognizes  health  and  virtue  as  ends  to  be 
pursued;  it  is  otherwise  with  intellectual  excellence,  and 
this  must  be  my  excuse  if  I  seem  to  any  one  to  be  be- 
stowing a  good  deal  of  labor  on  a  preliminary  matter. 

In  default  of  a  recognized  term,  I  have  called  the  per- 
fection or  virtue  of  the  intellect  by  the  name  of  philos- 
ophy, philosophical  knowledge,  enlargement  of  mind, 
or  illumination;  terms  which  are  not  uncommonly  given 
to  it  by  writers  of  this  day:  but,  whatever  name  we  be- 
stow on  it,  it  is,  I  believe,  as  a  matter  of  history,  the 
business  of  a  university  to  make  this  intellectual  culture 
its  direct  scope,  or  to  employ  itself  in  the  education  of 
the  intellect, — just  as  the  work  of  a  hospital  lies  in  heal- 
ing the  sick  or  wounded,  of  a  riding  or  fencing  school 
or  of  a  gymnasium  in  exercising  the  limbs,  of  an  alms- 
house in  aiding  and  solacing  the  old,  of  an  orphanage 
in  protecting  innocence,  of  a  penitentiary  in  restoring 
the  guilty.  I  say,  a  imiversity,  taken  in  its  bare  idea, 
and  before  we  view  it  as  an  instrument  of  the  church, 
has  this  object  and  this  mission;  it  contemplates  neither 
moral  impression  nor  mechanical  production;  it  professes 
to  exerdse  the  mind  neither  in  art  nor  in  duty;  its  func- 
tion is  intellectual  culture;  here  it  may  leave  its  scholars, 


170  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

and  it  has  done  its  work  when  it  has  done  as  much  as  this. 
It  educates  the  intellect  to  reason  well  in  all  matters,  to 
reach  out  toward  truth,  and  to  grasp  it. 


11 

This,  I  said  in  my  foregoing  discourse,  was  the  object 
of  a  university,  viewed  in  itself,  and  apart  from  the  Cath- 
oUc  Church,  or  from  the  state,  or  from  any  other  power 
which  may  use  it;  and  I  illustrated  this  in  various  ways. 
I  said  that  the  intellect  must  have  an  excellence  of  its 
own,  for  there  was  nothing  which  had  not  its  specific 
good;  that  the  word  "educate"  would  not  be  used  of  in- 
tellectual culture,  as  it  is  used,  had  not  the  intellect  had 
an  end  of  its  own;  that,  had  it  not  such  an  end,  there 
would  be  no  meaning  in  calling  certain  intellectual  exer- 
cises "liberal,"  in  contrast  with  "useful,"  as  is  commonly 
done;  that  the  very  notion  of  a  philosophical  temper 
implied  it,  for  it  threw  us  back  upon  research  and  sys- 
tem as  ends  in  themselves,  distinct  from  e£fects  and  works 
of  any  kind;  that  a  philosophical  scheme  of  knowledge,  or 
system  of  sciences,  could  not,  from  the  nature  of  the  case, 
issue  in  any  one  definite  art  or  pursuit  as  its  end;  and 
that,  on  the  other  hand,  the  discovery  and  contemplation 
of  truth,  to  which  research  and  systematizing  led,  were 
surely  sufl&cient  ends,  though  nothing  beyond  them  were 
added,  and  that  they  had  ever  been  accounted  sufficient 
by  mankind. 

Here,  then,  I  take  up  the  subject;  and,  having  deter- 
mined that  the  cultivation  of  the  intellect  is  an  end  distinct 
and  sufficient  in  itself,  and  that,  so  far  as  words  go,  it 
is  an  enlargement  or  illumination,  I  proceed  to  inquire 
what  this  mental  breadth,  or  power,  or  light,  or  philoso- 


KNOWLEDGE  AND  LEARNING  171 

phy  consists  in.  A  hospital  heals  a  broken  limb  or  cures 
a  fever:  what  does  an  institution  effect  which  professes 
the  health,  not  of  the  body,  not  of  the  soul,  but  of  the 
intellect?  What  is  this  good,  which  in  former  times,  as 
well  as  our  own,  has  been  found  worth  the  notice,  the  ap- 
propriation, of  the  Catholic  Church? 

I  have  then  to  investigate,  in  the  discourses  which 
follow,  those  quaUties  and  characteristics  of  the  intellect 
in  which  its  cultivation  issues  or  rather  consists;  and, 
with  a  view  of  assisting  myself  in  this  imdertaking,  I 
shall  recur  to  certain  questions  which  have  already  been 
touched  upon.  These  questions  are  three,  viz.:  the  re- 
lation of  intellectual  culture,  first,  to  mere  knowledge; 
secondly,  to  professional  knowledge;  and  thirdly,  to  re- 
ligious knowledge.  In  other  words,  are  acquirements  and 
attainments  the  scope  of  a  university  education?  or  expert- 
ness  in  particular  arts  and  pursuits?  or  m^ral  and  religious 
proficiency?  or  something  besides  these  three?  These 
questions  I  shall  examine  in  succession,  with  the  purpose 
I  have  mentioned;  and  I  hope  to  be  excused  if  in  this 
anxious  undertaking  I  am  led  to  repeat  what,  either  in 
these  discourses  or  elsewhere,  I  have  already  put  upon 
paper.  And  first,  of  Mere  Knowledge,  or  learning,  and  its 
connection  with  intellectual  illumination  or  philosophy. 

m 

I  suppose  the  primd  facie  view  which  the  public  at 
large  would  take  of  a  university,  considering  it  as  a  place 
of  education,  is  nothing  more  or  less  than  a  place  for 
acquiring  a  great  deal  of  knowledge  on  a  great  many 
subjects.  Memory  is  one  of  the  first  developed  of  the 
mental  faculties;  a  boy's  business  when  he  goes  to  school 


172  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

is  to  learn,  that  is,  to  store  up  things  in  his  memory.  For 
some  years  his  intellect  is  little  more  than  an  instrument 
for  taking  in  facts,  or  a  receptacle  for  storing  them;  he 
welcomes  them  as  fast  as  they  come  to  him;  he  lives  on 
what  is  without;  he  has  his  eyes  ever  about  him;  he  has  a 
lively  susceptibility  of  impressions;  he  imbibes  informa- 
tion of  every  kind;  and  little  does  he  make  his  own  in  a 
true  sense  of  the  word,  living  rather  upon  his  neighbors 
all  aroimd  him.  He  has  opinions,  religious,  political,  and 
literary,  and,  for  a  boy,  is  very  positive  in  them  and  sure 
about  them;  but  he  gets  them  from  his  schoolfellows,  or 
his  masters,  or  his  parents,  as  the  case  may  be.  Such  as 
he  is  in  his  other  relations,  such  also  is  he  in  his  school 
exercises;  his  mind  is  observant,  sharp,  ready,  retentive, 
he  is  almost  passive  in  the  acquisition  of  knowledge.  I 
say  this  in  no  disparagement  of  the  idea  of  a  clever  boy. 
Geography,  chronology,  history,  language,  natural  his- 
tory, he  heaps  up  the  matter  of  these  studies  as  treasures 
for  a  future  day.  It  is  the  seven  years  of  plenty  with  him : 
he  gathers  in  by  handfuls,  like  the  Egyptians,  without 
coimting;  and  though,  as  time  goes  on,  there  is  exercise 
for  his  argumentative  powers  in  the  elements  of  mathe- 
matics, and  for  his  taste  in  the  poets  and  orators,  still, 
while  at  school,  or  at  least  till  quite  the  last  years  of  his 
time,  he  acquires,  and  little  more;  and  when  he  is  leaving 
for  the  university  he  is  mainly  the  creature  of  foreign  in- 
fluences and  circumstances,  and  made  up  of  accidents, 
homogeneous  or  not,  as  the  case  may  be.  Moreover,  the 
moral  habits,  which  are  a  boy's  praise,  encourage  and  as- 
sist this  result;  that  is,  diligence,  assiduity,  regularity, 
dispatch,  persevering  application;  for  these  are  the  direct 
conditions  of  acquisition,  and  naturally  lead  to  it.  Ac- 
quirements, again,  are  emphatically  producible,  and  at  a 


KNOWLEDGE  AND  LEARNING  173 

moment;  they  are  a  something  to  show,  both  for  master 
and  scholar;  an  audience,  even  though  ignorant  them- 
selves of  the  subjects  of  an  examination,  can  comprehend 
when  questions  are  answered  and  when  they  are  not. 
Here  again  is  a  reason  why  mental  culture  is  in  the  minds 
of  men  identified  with  the  acquisition  of  knowledge. 

The  same  notion  possesses  the  public  mind,  when  it 
passes  on  from  the  thought  of  a  school  to  that  of  a  uni- 
versity: and  with  the  best  of  reasons  so  far  as  this,  that 
there  is  no  true  culture  without  acquirements,  and  that 
philosophy  presupposes  knowledge.  It  requires  a  great 
deal  of  reading,  or  a  wide  range  of  information,  to  war- 
rant us  in  putting  forth  our  opinions  on  any  serious  sub- 
ject; and  without  such  learning  the  most  original  mind 
may  be  able  indeed  to  dazzle,  to  amuse,  to  refute,  to  per- 
plex, but  not  to  come  to  any  useful  result  or  any  trust- 
worthy conclusion.  There  are,  indeed,  persons  who  profess 
a  different  view  of  the  matter,  and  even  act  upon  it. 
Every  now  and  then  you  will  find  a  person  of  vigorous 
or  fertile  mind,  who  relies  upon  his  own  resources,  despises 
all  former  authors,  and  gives  the  world,  with  the  utmost 
fearlessness,  his  views  upon  religion,  or  history,  or  any 
other  popular  subject.  And  his  works  may  sell  for  a  while; 
he  may  get  a  name  in  his  day;  but  this  will  be  all.  His 
readers  are  sure  to  find  in  the  long  run  that  his  doctrines 
are  mere  theories,  and  not  the  expression  of  facts,  that  they 
are  chaff  instead  of  bread,  and  then  his  popularity  drops  as 
suddenly  as  it  rose. 

Knowledge,  then,  is  the  indispensable  condition  of  ex- 
pansion of  mind  and  the  instrument  of  attaining  to  it; 
this  cannot  be  denied,  it  is  ever  to  be  insisted  on;  I  begin 
with  it  as  a  first  principle;  however,  the  very  truth  of 
it  carries  men  too  far,  and  confirms  to  them  the  notion 


174     COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

that  it  is  the  whole  of  the  matter.  A  narrow  mind  is 
thought  to  be  that  which  contains  little  knowledge;  and 
an  enlarged  mind,  that  which  holds  a  great  deal;  and 
what  seems  to  put  the  matter  beyond  dispute  is  the  fact 
of  the  great  number  of  studies  which  are  pursued  in  a 
university,  by  its  very  profession.  Lectures  are  given  on 
every  kind  of  subject;  examinations  are  held;  prizes 
awarded.  There  are  moral,  metaphysical,  physical  pro- 
fessors; professors  of  languages,  of  history,  of  mathe- 
matics, of  experimental  science.  Lists  of  questions  are 
published,  wonderful  for  their  range  and  depth,  variety 
and  difl&culty;  treatises  are  written,  which  carry  upon  their 
very  face  the  evidence  of  extensive  reading  or  multifarious 
information;  what,  then,  is  wanting  for  mental  culture  to 
a  person  of  large  reading  and  scientific  attainments  ?  What 
is  grasp  of  mind  but  acquirement  ?  Where  shall  philosoph- 
ical repose  be  found  but  in  the  consciousness  and  en- 
joyment of  large  intellectual  possessions? 

And  yet  this  notion  is,  I  conceive,  a  mistake,  and  my 
present  business  is  to  show  that  it  is  one,  and  that  the  end 
of  a  liberal  education  is  not  mere  knowledge,  or  knowl- 
edge considered  in  its  matter;  and  I  shall  best  attain  my 
object  by  actually  setting  down  some  cases,  which  will 
be  generally  granted  to  be  instances  of  the  process  of  en- 
lightenment or  enlargement  of  mind,  and  others  which 
are  not;  and  thus,  by  the  comparison,  you  will  be  able 
to  judge  for  yourselves,  gentlemen,  whether  knowledge, 
that  is,  acquirement,  is  after  all  the  real  principle  of  the 
enlargement,  or  whether  that  principle  is  not  rather  some- 
thing beyond  it. 


KNOWLEDGE  AND  LEARNING  175 

IV 

For  instance/  let  a  person,  whose  experience  has  hith- 
erto been  confined  to  the  more  calm  and  unpretending 
scenery  of  these  islands,  whether  here  or  in  England,  go 
for  the  first  time  into  parts  where  physical  nature  puts 
on  her  wilder  and  more  awful  forms,  whether  at  home  or 
abroad,  as  into  mountainous  districts;  or  let  one,  who 
has  ever  lived  in  a  quiet  village,  go  for  the  first  time  to  a 
great  metropolis — then  I  suppose  he  will  have  a  sensation 
which  perhaps  he  never  had  before.  He  has  a  feeling  not 
in  addition  or  increase  of  former  feelings,  but  of  some- 
thing different  in  its  nature.  He  will  perhaps  be  borne 
forward,  and  find  for  a  time  that  he  has  lost  his  bearings. 
He  has  made  a  certain  progress,  and  he  has  a  consciousness 
of  mental  enlargement;  he  does  not  stand  where  he  did,  he 
has  a  new  centre,  and  a  range  of  thoughts  to  which  he  was 
before  a  stranger. 

Again,  the  view  of  the  heavens  which  the  telescope 
opens  upon  us,  if  allowed  to  fill  and  possess  the  mind, 
may  almost  whirl  it  round  and  make  it  dizzy.  It  brings 
in  a  flood  of  ideas,  and  is  rightly  called  an  intellectual 
enlargement,  whatever  is  meant  by  the  term. 

And  so  again,  the  sight  of  beasts  of  prey  and  other 
foreign  animals,  their  strangeness,  the  originality  (if  I 
may  use  the  term)  of  their  forms  and  gestures  and  habits 
and  their  variety  and  independence  of  each  other,  throw 
us  out  of  ourselves  into  another  creation,  and  as  if  imder 
another  Creator,  if  I  may  so  express  the  temptation  which 
may  come  on  the  mind.     We  seem  to  have  new  faculties, 

'The  pages  which  follow  are  taken  almost  verbatim  from  the  author's 
14th  (Oxford)  University  Sermon,  which,  at  the  time  of  writing  this  dis- 
course, he  did  not  expect  ever  to  reprint. 


176  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

or  a  new  exercise  for  our  faculties,  by  this  addition  to 
our  knowledge;  like  a  prisoner,  who,  having  been  accus- 
tomed to  wear  manacles  or  fetters,  suddenly  finds  his  arms 
and  legs  free. 

Hence  physical  science  generally,  in  all  its  departments, 
as  bringing  before  us  the  exuberant  riches  and  resources, 
yet  the  orderly  course,  of  the  universe,  elevates  and  excites 
the  student,  and  at  first,  I  may  say,  almost  takes  away  his 
breath,  while  in  time  it  exercises  a  tranquillizing  influence 
upon  him. 

Again,  the  study  of  history  is  said  to  enlarge  and  en- 
lighten the  mind,  and  why?  Because,  as  I  conceive,  it 
gives  it  a  power  of  judging  of  passing  events,  and  of  all 
events,  and  a  conscious  superiority  over  them,  which 
before  it  did  not  possess. 

And  in  like  manner,  what  is  called  seeing  the  world, 
entering  into  active  life,  going  into  society,  travelling, 
gaining  acquaintance  with  the  various  classes  of  the 
community,  coming  into  contact  with  the  principles  and 
modes  of  thought  of  various  parties,  interests,  and  races, 
their  views,  aims,  habits  and  manners,  their  religious 
creeds  and  forms  of  worship — gaining  experience  how 
various  yet  how  alike  men  are,  how  low-minded,  how 
bad,  how  opposed,  yet  how  confident  in  their  opinions; 
all  this  exerts  a  perceptible  influence  upon  the  mind, 
which  it  is  impossible  to  mistake,  be  it  good  or  be  it  bad, 
and  is  popularly  called  its  enlargement. 

And  then  again,  the  first  time  the  mind  comes  across 
the  arguments  and  speculations  of  imbelievers,  and  feels 
what  a  novel  light  they  cast  upon  what  he  has  hitherto 
accounted  sacred;  and  still  more,  if  it  gives  in  to  them 
and  embraces  them,  and  throws  off  as  so  much  prejudice 
what  it  has  hitherto  held,  and,  as  if  waking  from  a  dream, 


KNOWLEDGE  AND  LEARNING  177 

begins  to  realize  to  its  imagination  that  there  is  now  no 
such  thing  as  law  and  the  transgression  of  law,  that  sin 
is  a  phantom  and  punishment  a  bugbear,  that  it  is  free 
to  sin,  free  to  enjoy  the  world  and  the  flesh;  and  still  further, 
when  it  does  enjoy  them,  and  reflects  that  it  may  think 
and  hold  just  what  it  will,  that  "the  world  is  all  before  it 
where  to  choose,"  and  what  system  to  build  up  as  its 
own  private  persuasion;  when  this  torrent  of  wilful  thoughts 
rushes  over  and  inundates  it,  who  will  deny  that  the  fruit 
of  the  tree  of  knowledge,  or  what  the  mind  takes  for 
knowledge,  has  made  it  one  of  the  gods,  with  a  sense  of 
expansion  and  elevation — an  intoxication  in  reality,  still, 
so  far  as  the  subjective  state  of  the  mind  goes,  an  illumina- 
tion? Hence  the  fanaticism  of  individuals  or  nations 
who  suddenly  cast  off  their  Maker.  Their  eyes  are  opened; 
and,  like  the  judgment-stricken  king  in  the  tragedy,  they 
see  two  suns  and  a  magic  universe,  out  of  which  they 
look  back  upon  their  former  state  of  faith  and  innocence 
with  a  sort  of  contempt  and  indignation,  as  if  they  were 
then  but  fools  and  the  dupes  of  imposture. 

On  the  other  hand,  religion  has  its  own  enlargement, 
and  an  enlargement,  not  of  tumult,  but  of  peace.  It  is 
often  remarked  of  uneducated  persons,  who  have  hitherto 
thought  little  of  the  unseen  world,  that,  on  their  turning 
to  Cjod,  looking  into  themselves,  regulating  their  hearts, 
reforming  their  conduct,  and  meditating  on  death  and 
judgment,  heaven  and  hell,  they  seem  to  become,  in 
point  of  intellect,  different  beings  from  what  they  were. 
Before,  they  took  things  as  they  came,  and  thought  no 
more  of  one  thing  than  another.  But  now  every  event 
has  a  meaning;  they  have  their  own  estimate  of  whatever 
happens  to  them;  they  are  mindful  of  times  and  seasons, 
and  compare  the  present  with  the  past;  and  the  world, 


178  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

no  longer  dull,  monotonous,  unprofitable,  and  hopeless, 
is  a  various  and  complicated  drama,  with  parts  and  an 
object,  and  an  awful  moral. 


Now  from  these  instances,  to  which  many  more  might 
be  added,  it  is  plain,  first,  that  the  communication  of 
knowledge  certainly  is  either  a  condition  or  the  means 
of  that  sense  of  enlargement  or  enlightenment',  of  which 
at  this  day  we  hear  so  much  in  certain  quarters:  this 
cannot  be  denied;  but  next,  it  is  equally  plain  that  such 
communication  is  not  the  whole  of  the  process.  The 
enlargement  consists,  not  merely  in  the  passive  reception 
into  the  mind  of  a  number  of  ideas  hitherto  unknown  to 
it,  but  in  the  mind's  energetic  and  simultaneous  action 
upon  and  toward  and  among  those  new  ideas,  which  are 
rushing  in  upon  it.  It  is  the  action  of  a  formative  power, 
reducing  to  order  and  meaning  the  matter  of  our  acquire- 
ments; it  is  a  making  the  objects  of  our  knowledge  sub- 
jectively our  own,  or,  to  use  a  familiar  word,  it  is  a  di- 
gestion of  what  we  receive,  into  the  substance  of  our 
previous  state  of  thought;  and  without  this  no  enlarge- 
ment is  said  to  follow.  There  is  no  enlargement,  unless 
there  be  a  comparison  of  ideas  one  with  another,  as  they 
come  before  the  mind,  and  a  systematizing  of  them.  We 
feel  our  minds  to  be  growing  and  expanding  then,  when 
we  not  only  learn,  but  refer  what  we  learn  to  what  we  know 
already.  It  is  not  the  mere  addition  to  our  knowledge 
that  is  the  illumination;  but  the  locomotion,  the  move- 
ment onward,  of  that  mental  centre  to  which  both  what 
we  know  and  what  we  are  learning,  the  accumulating  mass 
of  our  acquirements,  gravitates.    And  therefore  a  truly 


KNOWLEDGE  AND  LEARNING  179 

great  intellect,  and  recognized  to  be  such  by  the  common 
opinion  of  mankind,  such  as  the  intellect  of  Aristotle,  or 
of  St.  Thomas,  or  of  Newton,  or  of  Goethe  (I  purposely 
take  instances  within  and  without  the  Catholic  pale, 
when  I  would  speak  of  the  intellect  as  such),  is  one  which 
takes  a  connected  view  of  old  and  new,  past  and  present, 
far  and  near,  and  which  has  an  insight  into  the  influence 
of  all  these  one  on  another;  without  which  there  is  no  whole, 
and  no  centre.  It  possesses  the  knowledge,  not  only  of 
things,  but  also  of  their  mutual  and  true  relations;  knowl- 
edge, not  merely  considered  as  acquirement,  but  as  phi- 
losophy. 

Accordingly,  when  this  analytical,  distributive,  har- 
monizing process  is  away,  the  mind  experiences  no  en- 
largement, and  is  not  reckoned  as  enlightened  or  com- 
prehensive, whatever  it  may  add  to  its  knowledge//For 
instance,  a  great  memory,  as  I  have  already  said,  does  not 
make  a  philosopher,  any  more  than  a  dictionary  can  be 
called  a  grammar. /JThere  are  men  who  embrace  in  their 
minds  a  vast  mult&rfide  of  ideas,  but  with  little  sensibility 
about  their  real  relations  toward  each  other.  These  may 
be  antiquarians,  annalists,  naturalists;  they  may  be 
learned  in  the  law;  they  may  be  versed  in  statistics;  they 
are  most  useful  in  their  own  place;  I  should  shrink  from 
speaking  disrespectfully  of  them;  still,  there  is  nothing  in 
such  attainments  to  guarantee  the  absence  of  narrowness 
of  mind.  If  they  are  nothing  more  than  well-read  men, 
or  men  of  information,  they  have  not  what  specially  de- 
serves the  name  of  culture  of  mind,  or  fulfils  the  type  of 
liberal  education. 

In  like  manner,  we  sometimes  fall  in  with  persons  who 
have  seen  much  of  the  world,  and  of  the  men  who,  in 
their  day,  have  played  a  conspicuous  part  in  it,  but  who 


i8o  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

generalize  nothing,  and  have  no  observation,  in  the  true 
sense  of  the  word.  They  abound  in  information  in  detail, 
curious  and  entertaining,  about  men  and  things;  and, 
having  lived  under  the  influence  of  no  very  clear  or  settled 
principles,  reUgious  or  poHtical,  they  speak  of  every  one 
and  every'  thing  only  as  so  many  phenomena,  which  are 
complete  in  themselves  and  lead  to  nothing,  not  dis- 
cussing them,  or  teaching  any  truth,  or  instructing  the 
hearer,  but  simply  talking.  No  one  would  say  that  these 
persons,  well  informed  as  they  are,  had  attained  to  any 
great  culture  of  intellect  or  to  philosophy. 

The  case  is  the  same  still  more  strikingly  where  the 
persons  in  question  are  beyond  dispute  men  of  inferior 
powers  and  deficient  education.  Perhaps  they  have 
been  much  in  foreign  countries,  and  they  receive,  in  a 
passive,  otiose,  unfruitful  way,  the  various  facts  which  are 
forced  upon  them  there.  Seafaring  men,  for  example, 
range  from  one  end  of  the  earth  to  the  other;  but  the 
multipHcity  of  external  objects,  which  they  have  encoun- 
tered, forms  no  symmetrical  and  consistent  picture  upon 
their  imagination;  they  see  the  tapestry  of  human  life, 
as  it  were,  on  the  wrong  side,  and  it  tells  no  story.  They 
sleep,  and  they  rise  up,  and  they  find  themselves,  now  in 
Europe,  now  in  Asia;  they  see  visions  of  great  cities  and 
wild  regions;  they  are  in  the  marts  of  commerce,  or  amid 
the  islands  of  the  South;  they  gaze  on  Pompey's  Pillar, 
or  on  the  Andes;  and  nothing  which  meets  them  carries 
them  forward  or  backward,  to  any  idea  beyond  itself. 
Nothing  has  a  drift  or  relation;  nothing  has  a  history  or 
a  promise.  Everything  stands  by  itself,  and  comes  and 
goes  in  its  turn,  Hke  the  shifting  scenes  of  a  show,  which 
leave  the  spectator  where  he  was.  Perhaps  you  are  near 
such  a  man  on  a  particular  occasion,  and  expect  him  to 


KNOWLEDGE  AND  LEARNING  i8i 

be  shocked  or  perplexed  at  something  which  occurs; 
but  one  thing  is  much  the  same  to  him  as  another,  or,  if 
he  is  perplexed,  it  is  as  not  knowing  what  to  say,  whether 
it  is  right  to  admire,  or  to  ridicule,  or  to  disapprove, 
while  conscious  that  some  expression  of  opinion  is  ex- 
pected from  him;  for  in  fact  he  has  no  standard  of  judg- 
ment at  all,  and  no  landmarks  to  guide  him  to  a  conclusion. 
Such  is  mere  acquisition,  and,  I  repeat,  no  one  would 
dream  of  calling  it  philosophy. 

VI 

Instances,  such  as  these,  confirm,  by  the  contrast,  the 
conclusion  I  have  already  drawn  from  those  which  pre- 
ceded themy/That  only  is  true  enlargement  of  mind 
which  is  the  power  of  viewing  many  things  at  once  as 
one  whole,  of  referring  them  severally  to  their  true  place 
in  the  universal  system,  of  understanding  their  respective 
values,  and  determining  their  mutual  dependence /Thus 
is  that  form  of  universal  knowledge,  of  which  I  hs^e  on 
a  former  occasion  spoken,  set  up  in  the  individual  intel- 
lect, and  constitutes  its  perfection.  Possessed  of  this 
real  illumination,  the  mind  never  views  any  part  of  the 
extended  subject-matter  of  knowledge  without  recollect- 
ing that  it  is  but  a  part,  or  without  the  associations  which 
spring  from  this  recollection.  It  makes  everything  in 
some  sort  lead  to  everything  else;  it  would  communicate 
the  image  of  the  whole  to  every  separate  portion,  till  that 
whole  becomes  in  imagination  like  a  spirit,  everywhere 
pervading  and  penetrating  its  component  parts,  and  giving 
them  one  definite  meaning.  Just  as  our  bodily  organs, 
when  mentioned,  recall  their  function  in  the  body,  as  the 
word  "creation"  suggests  the  Creator,  and  "subjects"  a 


i82  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

sovereign,  so,  in  the  mind  of  the  philosopher,  as  we  are 
abstractedly  conceiving  of  him,  the  elements  of  the  phys- 
ical and  moral  world,  sciences,  arts,  pursuits,  ranks,  offices, 
events,  opinions,  individualities,  are  all  viewed  as  one,  with 
correlative  functions,  and  as  gradually  by  successive  com- 
binations converging,  one  and  all,  to  the  true  centre. 

To  have  even  a  portion  of  this  illuminative  reason  and 
true  philosophy  is  the  highest  state  to  which  nature  can 
aspire  in  the  way  of  intellect;  it  puts  the  mind  above 
the  influences  of  chance  and  necessity,  above  anxiety, 
suspense,  unsettlement,  and  superstition,  which  is  the  lot 
of  the  many.  Men,  whose  minds  are  possessed  with 
some  one  object,  take  exaggerated  views  of  its  importance, 
are  feverish  in  the  pursuit  of  it,  make  it  the  measure  of 
things  which  are  utterly  foreign  to  it,  and  are  startled 
and  despond  if  it  happens  to  fail  them.  They  are  ever 
in  alarm  or  in  transport.  Those,  on  the  other  hand,  who 
have  no  object  or  principle  whatever  to  hold  by,  lose  their 
way,  every  step  they  take.  They  are  thrown  out,  and  do 
not  know  what  to  think  or  say,  at  every  fresh  juncture; 
they  have  no  view  of  persons,  or  occurrences,  or  facts, 
which  come  suddenly  upon  them,  and  they  hang  upon  the 
opinion  of  others,  for  want  of  internal  resources.  But  the 
intellect,  which  has  been  disciplined  to  the  perfection  of 
its  powers,  which  knows,  and  thinks  while  it  knows,  which 
has  learned  to  leaven  the  dense  mass  of  facts  and  events 
with  the  elastic  force  of  reason,  such  an  intellect  cannot 
be  partial,  cannot  be  exclusive,  cannot  be  impetuous,  can- 
not be  at  a  loss,  cannot  but  be  patient,  collected,  and 
majestically  calm,  because  it  discerns  the  end  in  every  be- 
ginning, the  origin  in  every  end,  the  law  in  every  inter- 
ruption, the  limit  in  each  delay;  because  it  ever  knows 
where  it  stands,  and  how  its  path  lies  from  one  point  to 


KNOWLEDGE  AND  LEARNING  183 

another.    It  is  the  T€rpdycovo<;  of  the  Peripatetic,  and  has 
the  "nil  admirari"  of  the  Stoic, — 

"Felix  qui  potuit  renim  cognoscere  causas, 
Atque  metus  omnes,  et  inexorabile  fatum 
Subjecit  pedibus,  strepitumque  Acherontis  avari." 

There  are  men  who,  when  in  difficulties,  originate  at  the 
moment  vast  ideas  or  dazzling  projects;  who,  under  the 
influence  of  excitement,  are  able  to  cast  a  light,  almost 
as  if  from  inspiration,  on  a  subject  or  course  of  action 
which  comes  before  them;  who  have  a  sudden  presence  of 
mind  equal  to  any  emergency,  rising  with  the  occasion, 
and  an  undaunted  magnanimous  bearing,  and  an  energy 
and  keenness  which  is  but  made  intense  by  opposition. 
I  This  is  genius,  this  is  heroism ;  it  is  the  exhibition  of  a 
I  natural  gift,  which  no  culture  can  teach,  at  which  no 
\ institution  can  aim;  here,  on  the  contrary,  we  are  con- 
cerned, not  with  mere  nature,  but  with  training  and 
leaching.  That  perfection  of  the  intellect,  which  is  the 
result  of  education,  and  its  beau  ideal,  to  be  imparted 
to  individuals  in  their  respective  measures,  is  the  clear, 
calm,  accurate  vision  and  comprehension  of  all  things, 
as  far  as  the  finite  mind  can  embrace  them,  each  in  its 
place,  and  with  its  own  characteristics  upon  it.  It  is 
almost  prophetic  from  its  knowledge  of  history;  it  is 
almost  heart-searching  from  its  knowledge  of  human 
nature;  it  has  almost  supernatural  charity  from  its  free- 
dom from  littleness  and  prejudice;  it  has  almost  the  re- 
pose of  faith,  because  nothing  can  startle  it;  it  has  almost 
the  beauty  and  harmony  of  heavenly  contemplation,  so 
intimate  is  it  with  the  eternal  order  of  things  and  the 
music  of  the  spheres. 


i84  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

VII 

And  now,  if  I  may  take  for  granted  that  the  true  and 
adequate  end  of  intellectual  training  and  of  a  university 
is  not  learning  or  acquirement,  but  rather,  is  thought 
or  reason  exercised  upon  knowledge,  or  what  may  be 
called  philosophy,  I  shall  be  in  a  position  to  explain  the 
various  mistakes  which  at  the  present  day  beset  the  sub- 
ject of  university  education. 

I  say,  then,  if  we  would  improve  the  intellect,  first  of 

all,  we  must  ascend;  we  cannot  gain  real  knowledge  on 

a  level;  we  must  generalize,  we  must  reduce  to  method, 

we  must  have  a  grasp  of  principles,  and  group  and  shape 

our    acquisitions    by    means    of    them.     It   matters   not 

whether  our  field  of  operation  be  wide  or  limited;  in  every 

case,  to  command  it,  is  to  mount  above  it.    Who  has 

not  felt  the  irritation  of  mind  and  impatience  created  by 

a  deep,  rich  country,  visited  for  the  first  time,  with  winding 

lanes,  and  high  hedges,  and  green  steeps,  and  tangled 

woods,  and  everything  smiling  indeed,  but  in  a  maze? 

The  same  feeling  comes  upon  us  in  a  strange  city,  when  we 

have  no  map  of  its  streets.    Hence  you  hear  of  practised 

travellers,  when  they  first  come  into  a  place,  mounting 

some  high  hill  or  church  tower,  by  way  of  reconnoitring 

its  neighborhood.     In  like  manner,  you  must  be  above 

your  knowledge,  not  under  it,  or  it  will  oppress  you;  and 

the  more  you  have  of  it,  the  greater  will  be  the  load.   The 

learning  of  a  Salmasius  or  a  Burman,  imless  you  are  its 

master,  will  be  your  tyrant.     "Imperat  aut  servit";  if 

you  can  wield  it  with  a  strong  arm,  it  is  a  great  weapon; 

otherwise, 

"Vis  consili  expers 
Mole  ruit  smSl." 


KNOWLEDGE  AND  LEARNING  185 

You  will  be  overwhelmed,  like  Tarpeia,  by  the  heavy 
wealth  which  you  have  exacted  from  tributary  generations. 
Instances  abound;  there  are  authors  who  are  as  point- 
less as  they  are  inexhaustible  in  their  literary  resources. 
They  measure  knowledge  by  bulk,  as  it  lies  in  the  rude 
block,  without  symmetry,  without  design.  How  many 
commentators  are  there  on  the  classics,  how  many  on 
Holy  Scripture,  from  whom  we  rise  up,  wondering  at  the 
learning  which  has  passed  before  us,  and  wondering  why 
it  passed !  How  many  writers  are  there  of  ecclesiastical 
history,  such  as  Mosheim  or  Du  Pin,  who,  breaking  up 
their  subject  into  details,  destroy  its  life,  and  defraud  us 
of  the  whole  by  their  anxiety  about  the  parts!  The 
sermons,  again,  of  the  English  divines  in  the  seventeenth 
century,  how  often  are  they  mere  repertories  of  miscel- 
laneous and  officious  learning !  Of  course  Catholics  also 
may  read  without  thinking;  and,  in  their  case,  equally  as 
with  Protestants,  it  holds  good,  that  such  knowledge  is 
unworthy  of  the  name,  knowledge  which  they  have  not 
thought  through,  and  thought  out.  Such  readers  are 
only  possessed  by  their  knowledge,  not  possessed  of  it; 
nay,  in  matter  of  fact  they  are  often  even  carried  away  by 
it,  without  any  voUtion  of  their  own.  Recollect,  the 
memory  can  tyrannize  as  well  as  the  imagination.  De- 
rangement, I  believe,  has  been  considered  as  a  loss  of  con- 
trol over  the  sequence  of  ideas.  The  mind,  once  set  in 
motion,  is  henceforth  deprived  of  the  power  of  initiation, 
and  becomes  the  victim  of  a  train  of  associations,  one 
thought  suggesting  another,  in  the  way  of  cause  and 
effect,  as  if  by  a  mechanical  process,  or  some  physical 
necessity.  No  one,  who  has  had  experience  of  men  of 
studious  habits,  but  must  recognize  the  existence  of  a 
parallel  phenomenon  in  the  case  of  those  who  have  over- 


i86  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

stimulated  the  memory.  In  such  persons  reason  acts  al- 
most as  feebly  and  as  impotently  as  in  the  madman;  once 
fairly  started  on  any  subject  whatever,  they  have  no 
power  of  self-control;  they  passively  endure  the  succession 
of  impulses  which  are  evolved  out  of  the  original  exciting 
cause;  they  are  passed  on  from  one  idea  to  another  and 
go  steadily  forward,  plodding  along  one  line  of  thought 
in  spite  of  the  amplest  concessions  of  the  hearer,  or  wan- 
dering from  it  in  endless  digression  in  spite  of  his  remon- 
strances. Now,  if,  as  is  very  certain,  no  one  would  envy 
the  madman  the  glow  and  originality  of  his  conceptions, 
why  must  we  extol  the  cultivation  of  that  intellect,  which  is 
the  prey,  not  indeed  of  barren  fancies  but  of  barren  facts, 
of  random  intrusions  from  without,  though  not  of  morbid 
imaginations  from  within?  And  in  thus  speaking,  I  am 
not  denying  that  a  strong  and  ready  memory  is  in  itself 
a  real  treasure;  I  am  not  disparaging  a  well-stored  mind, 
though  it  be  nothing  besides,  provided  it  be  sober,  any 
more  than  I  would  despise  a  bookseller's  shop: — ^it  is  of 
great  value  to  others,  even  when  not  so  to  the  owner. 
Nor  am  I  banishing,  far  from  it,  the  possessors  of  deep 
and  multifarious  learning  from  my  ideal  university;  they 
adorn  it  in  the  eyes  of  men;  I  do  but  say  that  they  consti- 
tute no  type  of  the  results  at  which  it  aims;  that  it  is  no 
great  gain  to  the  intellect  to  have  enlarged  the  memory 
at  the  expense  of  faculties  which  are  indisputably  higher. 

vni 

Nor  indeed  am  I  supposing  that  there  is  any  great 
danger,  at  least  in  this  day,  of  overeducation;  the  danger 
is  on  the  other  side.  I  will  tell  you,  gentlemen,  what  has 
been  the  practical  error  of  the  last  twenty  years, — ^not  to 


KNOWLEDGE    AND    LEARNING  187 

load  the  memory  of  the  student  with  a  mass  of  imdigested 
knowledge,  but  to  force  upon  him  so  much  that  he  has 
rejected  all.  It  has  been  the  error  of  distracting  and 
enfeebling  the  mind  by  an  unmeaning  profusion  of  sub- 
jects; of  implying  that  a  smattering  in  a  dozen  branches 
of  study  is  not  shallowness,  which  it  really  is,  but  en- 
largement, which  it  is  not;  of  considering  an  acquaintance 
with  the  learned  names  of  things  and  persons,  and  the 
possession  of  clever  duodecimos,  and  attendance  on  elo- 
quent lecturers,  and  membership  with  scientific  institu- 
tions, and  the  sight  of  the  experiments  of  a  platform  and 
the  specimens  of  a  museum,  that  all  this  was  not  dissipa- 
tion of  mind,  but  progress.  All  things  now  are  to  be 
learned  at  once,  not  first  one  thing,  then  another,  not  one 
well,  but  many  badly.  Learning  is  to  be  without  exer- 
tion, without  attention,  without  toil;  without  grounding, 
without  advance,  without  finishing.  There  is  to  be  nothing 
individual  in  it;  and  this,  forsooth,  is  the  wonder  of  the 
age.  What  the  steam-engine  does  with  matter,  the  print- 
ing-press is  to  do  with  mind;  it  is  to  act  mechanically, 
and  the  population  is  to  be  passively,  almost  unconsciously 
enlightened,  by  the  mere  multiplication  and  dissemination 
of  volumes.  Whether  it  be  the  schoolboy,  or  the  school- 
girl, or  the  youth  at  college,  or  the  mechanic  in  the  town, 
or  the  politician  in  the  senate,  all  have  been  the  victims 
in  one  way  or  other  of  this  most  preposterous  and  per- 
nicious of  delusions.  Wise  men  have  lifted  up  their  voices 
in  vain;  and  at  length,  lest  their  own  institutions  should 
be  outshone  and  should  disappear  in  the  folly  of  the  hour, 
they  have  been  obliged,  as  far  as  they  could  with  a  good 
conscience,  to  humor  a  spirit  which  they  could  not  with- 
stand, and  make  temporizing  concessions  at  which  they 
could  not  but  inwardly  smile. 


i88  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

It  must  not  be  supposed  that,  because  I  so  speak,  there- 
fore I  have  some  sort  of  fear  of  the  education  of  the  peo- 
ple: on  the  contrary,  the  more  education  they  have,  the 
better,  so  that  it  is  really  education.  Nor  am  I  an  enemy 
to  the  cheap  pubHcation  of  scientific  and  literary  works, 
which  is  now  in  vogue:  on  the  contrary,  I  consider  it  a 
great  advantage,  convenience,  and  gain;  that  is,  to  those 
to  whom  education  has  given  a  capacity  for  using  them. 
Further,  I  consider  such  innocent  recreations  as  science 
and  literature  are  able  to  furnish  will  be  a  very  fit  occu- 
pation of  the  thoughts  and  the  leisure  of  young  persons, 
and  may  be  made  the  means  of  keeping  them  from  bad 
employments  and  bad  companions.  Moreover,  as  to  that 
superficial  acquaintance  with  chemistry,  and  geology,  and 
astronomy,  and  political  economy,  and  modern  history, 
and  biography,  and  other  branches  of  knowledge,  which 
periodical  literature  and  occasional  lectures  and  scientific 
institutions  diffuse  through  the  community,  I  think  it 
a  graceful  accomplishment,  and  a  suitable,  nay,  in  this 
day  a  necessary  accomplishment,  in  the  case  of  educated 
men.  Nor,  lastly,  am  I  disparaging  or  discouraging  the 
thorough  acquisition  of  any  one  of  these  studies,  or  deny- 
ing that,  as  far  as  it  goes,  such  thorough  acquisition  is 
a  real  education  of  the  mind.  All  I  say  is,  call  things  by 
their  right  names,  and  do  not  confuse  together  ideas 
which  are  essentially  different.  A  thorough  knowledge  of 
one  science  and  a  superficial  acquaintance  with  many, 
are  not  the  same  thing;  a  smattering  of  a  hundred  things 
or  a  memory  for  detail  is  not  a  philosophical  or  com- 
prehensive view,  /j^ecreations  are  not  education;  accom- 
plishments are  not  education,  f  Bo  not  say,  the  people 
must  be  educated,  when,  after  all,  you  only  mean  amused, 
refreshed,  soothed,  put  into  good  spirits  and  good  humor, 


KNOWLEDGE    AND    LEARNING  189 

or  kept  from  vicious  excesses.  I  do  not  say  that  such 
amusements,  such  occupations  of  mind,  are  not  a  great 
gain;  but  they  are  not  education.  You  may  as  well  call 
drawing  and  fencing  education,  as  a  general  knowledge  of 
botany  or  conchology.  Stuffing  birds  or  playing  stringed 
instruments  is  an  elegant  pastime,  and  a  resource  to  the 
idle,  but  it  isiiiot  education;  it  does  not  form  or  cultivate 
the  intellect. //Education  is  a  high  word;  it  is  the  prepara- 
tion for  knowledge,  and  it  is  the  imparting  of  knowledge 
in  proportion  to  that  preparation.  .'We  require  intellec- 
tual eyes  to  know  withal,  as  bodily  eyes  for  sight.  We 
need  both  objects  and  organs  intellectual;  we  cannot 
gain  them  without  setting  about  it;  we  cannot  gain  them 
in  our  sleep,  or  by  haphazard.  The  best  telescope  does 
not  dispense  with  eyes;  the  printing-press  or  the  lecture- 
room  will  assist  us  greatly,  but  we  must  be  true  to  our- 
selves; we  must  be  parties  in  the  work.  A  university  is, 
according  to  the  usual  designation,  an  Alma  Mater,  know- 
ing her  children  one  by  one,  not  a  foundry,  or  a  mint,  or  a 
treadmill. 


DC 

I  protest  to  you,  gentlemen,  that  if  I  had  to  choose 
between  a  so-called  university,  which  dispensed  with 
residence  and  tutorial  superintendence,  and  gave  its 
degrees  to  any  person  who  passed  an  examination  in  a 
wide  range  of  subjects,  and  a  university  which  had  no 
professors  or  examinations  at  all,  but  merely  brought  a 
number  of  young  men  together  for  three  or  four  years, 
and  then  sent  them  away  as  the  University  of  Oxford  is 
said  to  have  done  some  sixty  years  since;  if  I  were  asked 
which  of  these  two  methods  was  the  better  discipline  of 


I90  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

the  intellect, — mind,  I  do  not  say  which  is  morally  the 
better,  for  it  is  plain  that  compulsory  study  must  be  a 
good  and  idleness  an  intolerable  mischief, — but  if  I  must 
determine  which  of  the  two  courses  was  the  more  success- 
ful in  training,  moulding,  enlarging  the  mind,  which 
sent  out  men  the  more  fitted  for  their  secular  duties, 
which  produced  better  pubUc  men,  men  of  the  world, 
men  whose  names  would  descend  to  posterity,  I  have  no 
hesitation  in  giving  the  preference  to  that  university 
which  did  nothing,  over  that  which  exacted  of  its  members 
an  acquaintance  with  every  science  under  the  sun.  And, 
paradox  as  this  may  seem,  still  if  results  be  the  test  of 
systems,  the  influence  of  the  public  schools  and  colleges 
of  England,  in  the  course  of  the  last  century,  at  least  will 
bear  out  one  side  of  the  contrast  as  I  have  drawn  it:  What 
would  come,  on  the  other  hand,  of  the  ideal  systems  of 
education  which  have  fascinated  the  imagination  of  this 
age,  could  they  ever  take  effect,  and  whether  they  would 
not  produce  a  generation  frivolous,  narrow-minded,  and 
resourceless,  intellectually  considered,  is  a  fair  subject  for 
debate;  but  so  far  is  certain,  that  the  universities  and 
scholastic  establishments,  to  which  I  refer,  and  which  did 
little  more  than  bring  together  first  boys  and  then  youths 
in  large  numbers,  these  institutions,  with  miserable  de- 
formities on  the  side  of  morals,  with  a  hollow  profession 
of  Christianity  and  a  heathen  code  of  ethics, — I  say,  at 
least  they  can  boast  of  a  succession  of  heroes  and  states- 
men, of  literary  men  and  philosophers,  of  men  conspicuous 
for  great  natural  virtues,  for  habits  of  business,  for  knowl- 
edge of  life,  for  practical  judgment,  for  cultivated  tastes, 
for  accomplishments,  who  have  made  England  what  it  is, — 
able  to  subdue  the  earth,  able  to  domineer  over  Catholics. 
How  is  this  to  be  explained?    I  suppose  as  follows: 


KNOWLEDGE    AND    LEARNING  191 

When  a  multitude  of  young  men,  keen,  open-hearted, 
sympathetic,  and  observant,  as  young  men  are,  come 
together  and  freely  mix  with  each  other,  they  are  sure 
to  learn  one  from  another,  even  if  there  be  no  one  to 
teach  them;  the  conversation  of  all  is  a  series  of  lectures 
to  each,  and  they  gain  for  themselves  new  ideas  and  views, 
fresh  matter  of  thought,  and  distinct  principles  for  judg- 
ing and  acting,  day  by  day.  An  infant  has  to  learn  the 
meaning  of  the  information  which  its  senses  convey  to  it, 
and  this  seems  to  be  its  employment.  It  fancies  all  that 
the  eye  presents  to  it  to  be  close  to  it,  till  it  actually  learns 
the  contrary,  and  thus  by  practise  does  it  ascertain  the 
relations  and  uses  of  those  first  elements  of  knowledge 
which  are  necessary  for  its  animal  existence.  A  parallel 
teaching  is  necessary  for  our  social  being,  and  it  is  secured 
by  a  large  school  or  a  college;  and  this  effect  may  be  fairly 
called  in  its  own  department  an  enlargement  of  mind. 
It  is  seeing  the  world  on  a  small  field  with  little  trouble; 
for  the  pupils  or  students  come  from  very  dijfferent  places, 
and  with  widely  different  notions,  and  there  is  much  to 
generalize,  much  to  adjust,  much  to  eliminate,  there  are 
interrelations  to  be  defined,  and  conventional  rules  to  be 
established,  in  the  process,  by  which  the  whole  assemblage 
is  moulded  together,  and  gains  one  tone  and  one  character. 
Let  it  be  clearly  understood,  I  repeat  it,  that  I  am  not 
taking  into  account  moral  or  religious  considerations;  I 
am  but  saying  that  that  youthful  community  will  con- 
stitute a  whole,  it  will  embody  a  specific  idea,  it  will  rep- 
resent a  doctrine,  it  will  administer  a  code  of  conduct, 
and  it  will  furnish  principles  of  thought  and  action.  It 
will  give  birth  to  a  Uving  teaching,  which  in  course  of 
time  will  take  the  shape  of  a  self-perpetuating  tradition, 
or  a  genius  loci,  as  it  is  sometimes  called;  which  haimts 


192  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

the  home  where  it  has  been  born,  and  which  imbues  and 
forms,  more  or  less,  and  one  by  one,  every  individual 
who  is  successively  brought  under  its  shadow.  Thus  it 
is  that,  independent  of  direct  instruction  on  the  part  of 
superiors,  there  is  a  sort  of  self-education  in  the  academic 
institutions  of  Protestant  England;  a  characteristic  tone 
of  thought,  a  recognized  standard  of  judgment  is  found 
in  them,  which,  as  developed  in  the  individual  who  is 
submitted  to  it,  becomes  a  twofold  source  of  strength  to 
him,  both  from  the  distinct  stamp  it  impresses  on  his 
mind,  and  from  the  bond  of  union  which  it  creates  be- 
tween him  and  others, — effects  which  are  shared  by  the 
authorities  of  the  place,  for  they  themselves  have  been 
educated  in  it,  and  at  all  times  are  exposed  to  the  influ- 
ence of  its  ethical  atmosphere.  Here,  then,  is  a  real  teach- 
ing, whatever  be  its  standards  and  principles,  true  or 
false;  and  it  at  least  tends  toward  cultivation  of  the  in- 
tellect; it  at  least  recognizes  that  knowledge  is  something 
more  than  a  sort  of  passive  reception  of  scraps  and  de- 
tails; it  is  a  something,  and  it  does  a  something,  which 
never  will  issue  from  the  most  strenuous  efforts  of  a  set 
of  teachers,  with  no  mutual  sympathies  and  no  inter- 
communion, of  a  set  of  examiners  with  no  opinions  which 
they  dare  profess,  and  with  no  common  principles,  who 
are  teaching  or  questioning  a  set  of  youths  who  do  not 
know  them,  and  do  not  know  each  other,  on  a  large  num- 
ber of  subjects,  different  in  kind,  and  connected  by  no 
wide  philosophy,  three  times  a  week,  or  three  times  a 
year,  or  once  in  three  years,  in  chill  lecture-rooms  or  on  a 
pompous  anniversary. 


KNOWLEDGE  AND  LEARNING  193 


Nay,  self-education  in  any  shape,  in  the  most  restricted 
sense,  is  preferable  to  a  system  of  teaching  which,  pro- 
fessing so  much,  really  does  so  little  for  the  mind.  Shut 
your  college  gates  against  the  votary  of  knowledge,  throw 
him  back  upon  the  searchings  and  the  efforts  of  his  own 
mind;  he  will  gain  by  being  spared  an  entrance  into  your 
Babel.  Few  indeed  there  are  who  can  dispense  with  the 
stimulus  and  support  of  instructors,  or  will  do  anything 
at  all,  if  left  to  themselves.  And  fewer  still  (though  such 
great  minds  are  to  be  found)  who  will  not,  from  such  un- 
assisted attempts,  contract  a  self-reliance  and  a  self-es- 
teem, which  are  not  only  moral  evils,  but  serious  hindrances 
to  the  attainment  of  truth.  And  next  to  none,  perhaps, 
or  none,  who  will  not  be  reminded  from  time  to  time  of 
the  disadvantage  under  which  they  lie,  by  their  imper- 
fect grounding,  by  the  breaks,  deficiencies,  and  irregular- 
ities of  their  knowledge,  by  the  eccentricity  of  opinion  and 
the  confusion  of  principle  which  they  exhibit.  They  will 
be  too  often  ignorant  of  what  every  one  knows  and  takes 
for  granted,  of  that  multitude  of  small  truths  which  fall 
upon  the  mind  like  dust,  impalpable  and  ever  accumulat- 
ing; they  may  be  unable  to  converse,  they  may  argue  per- 
versely, they  may  pride  themselves  on  their  worst  para- 
doxes or  their  grossest  truisms,  they  may  be  full  of  their 
own  mode  of  viewing  things,  unwilling  to  be  put  out  of 
their  way,  slow  to  enter  into  the  minds  of  others; — but, 
with  these  and  whatever  other  liabilities  upon  their  heads, 
they  are  likely  to  have  more  thought,  more  mind,  more 
philosophy,  more  true  enlargement,  than  those  earnest 
but  ill-used  persons  who  are  forced  to  load  their  minds 


194  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

with  a  score  of  subjects  against  an  examination,  who 
have  too  much  on  their  hands  to  indulge  themselves  in 
thinking  or  investigation,  who  devour  premise  and  con- 
clusion together  with  indiscriminate  greediness,  who 
hold  whole  sciences  on  faith,  and  commit  demonstrations 
to  memory,  and  who  too  often,  as  might  be  expected, 
when  their  period  of  education  is  passed,  throw  up  all 
they  have  learned  in  disgust,  having  gained  nothing  really 
by  their  anxious  labors  except,  perhaps,  the  habit  of  ap- 
plication. 

Yet  such  is  the  better  specimen  of  the  fruit  of  that 
ambitious  system  which  has  of  late  years  been  making 
way  among  us:  for  its  result  on  ordinary  minds,  and  on 
the  common  run  of  students,  is  less  satisfactory  still; 
they  leave  their  place  of  education  simply  dissipated  and 
relaxed  by  the  multiplicity  of  subjects,  which  they  have 
never  really  mastered,  and  so  shallow  as  not  even  to  know 
their  shallowness.  How  much  better,  I  say,  is  it  for  the 
active  and  thoughtful  intellect,  where  such  is  to  be  found, 
to  eschew  the  college  and  the  university  altogether,  than 
to  submit  to  a  drudgery  so  ignoble,  a  mockery  so  con- 
tumelious !  How  much  more  profitable  for  the  independ- 
ent mind,  after  the  mere  rudiments  of  education,  to  range 
through  a  library  at  random,  taking  down  books  as  they 
meet  him,  and  pursuing  the  trains  of  thought  which  his 
mother  wit  suggests!  How  much  healthier  to  wander 
into  the  fields,  and  there  with  the  exiled  Prince  to  find 
"tongues  in  the  trees,  books  in  the  running  brooks!" 
How  much  more  genuine  an  education  is  that  of  the  poor 
boy  in  the  poem^ — a  poem,  whether  in  conception  or  in 

*  Crabbe's  Tales  of  the  Hall.  This  poem,  let  me  say,  I  read  on  its  first 
publication,  above  thirty  years  ago,  with  extreme  delight,  and  have  never 
lost  my  love  of  it;  and  on  taking  it  up  lately,  found  I  was  even  more  touched 


KNOWLEDGE  AND  LEARNING  195 

execution,  one  of  the  most  touching  in  our  language — 
who,  not  in  the  wide  world,  but  ranging  day  by  day  around 
his  widowed  mother's  home,  "a  dexterous  gleaner"  in  a 
narrow  field,  and  with  only  such  slender  outfit 

"as  the  village  school  and  books  a  few 
Supplied," 

contrived  from  the  beach,  and  the  quay,  and  the  fisher's 
boat,  and  the  inn's  fireside,  and  the  tradesman's  shop, 
and  the  shepherd's  walk,  and  the  smuggler's  hut,  and 
the  mossy  moor,  and  the  screaming  gulls,  and  the  rest- 
less waves,  to  fashion  for  himself  a  philosophy  and  a  poetry 
of  his  own ! 

But,  in  a  large  subject,  I  am  exceeding  my  necessary 
limits.  Gentlemen,  I  must  conclude  abruptly;  and  post- 
pone any  summing  up  of  my  argument,  should  that  be 
necessary,  to  another  day. 

by  it  than  heretofore.  A  work  which  can  please  in  youth  and  age  seems 
to  fulfil  (in  logical  language)  the  accidental  definition  of  a  classic.  (A 
further  course  of  twenty  years  has  passed,  and  I  bear  the  same  witness  in 
favor  of  this  poem.) 


XIII 
THE  COLLEGE  CURRICULUM 

RICHARD   RICE,   JR. 

President  Eliot  declared  that  a  faithful  reading  of  the 
books  on  his  Five-Foot  Shelf  will  give  any  man  the  es- 
sentials of  a  liberal  education.  This  statement  has  made 
a  great  many  people  ask  rather  sceptically  what  these 
essentials  really  are.  Is  it  possible  in  the  infinite  variety 
of  modern  life  to  speak  of  the  essentials  of  education  ?  Are 
not  Uberally  educated  men  and  women  produced  by  ex- 
perience and  training  the  most  diverse  ?  Can  we  then  say 
with  assurance  that  liberal  education  is  something  made 
either  of  the  information  and  ideas  to  be  gleaned  from  the 
great  books  or  of  the  culture  to  be  absorbed  from  a  society 
which  the  great  books  help  create  and  which  they  rep- 
resent? Even  combining  these  two  aspects  of  the  matter, 
can  we  assert  that  the  qualities  typical  of  liberally  educated 
men  and  women  are  chiefly  the  result  of  college  training  ? 

These  are  questions  as  interesting  as  they  are  old;  but 
they  hardly  go  to  the  centre  of  the  matter.  In  the 
first  place,  as  between  society  and  books,  or,  let  us  say, 
between  college  life  and  the  college  curriculum,  there  is 
no  true  comparison  for  prior  importance.  Books  are 
human,  and  men  are  largely  bookish.  They  are  long  since 
part  and  parcel  of  each  other;  and  whether  a  man  feels 
his  education  to  be  furthered  more  by  an  essay  or  a  dinner- 
party, by  lectures  in  biology  or  the  friendship  of  the  pro- 

196 


THE   COLLEGE   CURRICULUM  197 

fessor,  are  purely  academic  questions.  In  the  second  place, 
the  obvious  fact  that  liberally  educated  men  and  women 
are  being  produced  in  our  modem  society,  just  as  they 
always  have  been,  by  a  great  variety  of  means,  in  no  wise 
invalidates  the  statement  that  a  study  of  the  chief  minds, 
and  of  the  representative  manners  of  thinking  about  the 
world  we  live  in,  is  a  method  of  securing  Uberal  culture. 

Culture  of  intellect,  illuminative  reason,  as  Newman 
has  said,  comes  not  from  packing  the  brain  with  detail, 
but  from  comparing  ideas  one  with  another.  The  guide 
to  wisdom  is  studying  the  great  facts  and  interests  of  life 
in  different  modes  of  thought,  with  a  view  to  seeing  life 
from  several  sides.  And  since  such  books  as  President 
Eliot  refers  to  on  his  five-foot  shelf  are  nearly  all  by  very 
great  men,  and  since  they  treat  of  the  great  interests  of 
life  in  the  different  modes  of  thought — science,  poetry, 
and  philosophy — his  statement  regarding  those  books  has 
all  the  authority  that  human  civilization  can  give  it. 
Such  writings  are  the  long  inheritance  of  society.  For 
a  man  who  perceives  their  significance,  a  comparison  is 
inevitable,  not  only  of  book  with  book,  but  of  his  personal 
experience  with  the  experience  they  depict;  and  this,  of 
course,  leads  to  comparison  with  the  experience  of  his 
friends.  Hence,  may  we  not  here  further  describe  liberal 
culture  as  the  assimilation  of  ideas  by  the  individual  in 
such  social  form  as  makes  him  wish  to  re-express  them 
for  himself?  Is  not  this  the  opportunity  which  experience 
in  Ufe  and  the  criticism  of  the  great  records  of  experience 
have  to  offer? 

It  is  also  the  opportunity,  therefore,  which  the  curric- 
ulum of  a  liberal  college  endeavors  to  offer.  For  this  pro- 
gramme is  conceived  from  the  idea  that  a  training  in  the 
representative  modes  of  thought  is  the  essential  thing  in 


198  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

education,  and  that  this  training  should  be  had  in  a  some- 
what more  personal  way  than  is  possible  with  books  alone, 
and  in  a  form  more  concentrated  and  ideally  comprehen- 
sible than  is  the  case  in  the  Ufe  of  any  one  man.  An  un- 
derstanding of  the  real  nature  of  this  programme,  the 
rigidity  and  the  scope  of  its  demands,  and  especially  the 
modes  of  thought  which  it  emphasizes,  is  then  the  purpose 
of  this  essay. 

When  the  freshman  enters  college,  with  its  variety  of 
courses,  he  may  have  little  notion  why  he,  with  certain 
tastes  and  abilities,  must  select  almost  the  same  set  of 
representative  studies  as  everybody  else.  Perhaps  he  does 
not  imderstand  why  they  are  representative.  Indeed,  this 
is  one  of  the  things  that  often  continue  to  puzzle  him 
through  the  four  years  of  a  classical  course,  and  some- 
times there  is  very  little  illumination  to  be  had  on  the 
matter  from  anybody  concerned.  Why  should  a  man  of 
strong  practical  bent,  who  knows  what  he  wants  to  do  in 
life,  be  made  to  choose  courses  quite  outside  the  range  of 
his  serious  tastes?  With  the  ultimate  intention  of  being  a 
doctor,  why  should  he  devote  a  good  deal  of  time  for  three 
or  four  years  to  such  subjects  as  advanced  mathematics, 
literature,  and  philosophy,  to  principles  of  calculus  he  may 
never  learn  to  apply,  to  poetry  he  will  probably  forget,  to 
logic  he  but  faintly  understands?  To  such  questions  he 
may  not  find  many  lucid  answers  forthcoming.  Yet  it  is 
really  important  that  he  should  be  lucidly  answered.  A 
great  deal  of  futility  and  evil  can  result  from  befogging 
his  mind  with  conventionalities. 

His  father,  who  has  come  to  the  decision  to  send  him  to 
college,  is  often  no  more  specific  than  to  say  that  college, 
in  spite  of  a  lot  of  nonsense  about  the  classics  and  a  good 
deal  of  mere  scientific  lumber,  is  probably  "a  good  thing." 


THE  COLLEGE  CURRICULUM  199 

His  instructors  themselves  rarely  seem  to  have  thought 
the  matter  out  in  clear  terms,  and  may  feel  at  so  hopeless 
a  disadvantage  when  discussing  the  raison  d'etre  of  re- 
quirements in  liberal  arts  with  a  man  who  has  not  already 
had  their  brand  of  education  and  does  not  imderstand  their 
"background,"  that  they  conclude  either  by  patronizing 
him  or  by  doubting  their  own  convictions.  To  say  that 
the  courses  he  is  taking  in  Latin,  Greek,  mediaeval  history, 
bUnd  fishes,  dynamics,  Emanuel  Kant,  and  Egyptian 
architecture  are  for  the  purpose  of  training  the  mind  is 
not  felt  nowadays  to  be  a  specific  answer.  Unquestion- 
ably these  studies  train  the  mind,  unquestionably  they  are 
part  of  a  liberal  education;  but  what  the  inquisitive  fresh- 
man wants  to  know  is  why  these  subjects  have  to  be 
taught  him,  and  not  some  others  in  which  he  could  clearly 
see  both  ideal  value  as  training  and  practical  utility.  In 
all  these  years,  he  wonders,  why  haven't  we  learned  to 
kill  the  two  birds  with  one  stone?  If  the  instructor  ex- 
plains, in  a  fashion  quite  out  of  date,  that  subjects  taught 
for  specific  utility  invite  scientific  treatment  to  such  an 
extent  that  their  ideal  value  as  mental  training  is  lessened, 
that  seems  no  answer  at  all.  The  practical  freshman  will 
not  see  it  that  way. 

What  is  lacking  in  all  conventional  answers  to  the 
charge  of  impracticaUty  in  the  Uberal-arts  course  is  a  clear 
idea  of  the  purpose  for  which  the  course  prepares.  This 
purpose  is  to  think  about  life's  problems  roundly  and  not 
flatly,  to  do  what  Matthew  Arnold  called  seeing  Ufe  steadily 
and  seeing  it  whole.  How  much  is  summed  up  in  such 
phrases  that  we  dismiss  with  the  uttering  of  them ! 

The  essential  purpose  of  liberal  training  is  to  train,  not  in 
one  way,  but  in  many  ways  of  thinking  about  a  fact  or  of 
applying  an  idea.    It  is  to  train  in  all  the  modes  of  thought 


200  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

necessary  to  solve  practical  problems,  though  of  these  modes 
only  one  is  nominally  "the  practical."  This  is  not  a  para- 
dox. The  modes  of  thought  are  science,  poetry,  and  philos- 
ophy. The  problems  of  life  are  complex,  and  require  more 
than  one  kind  of  thinking  for  their  happy  solution.  Obvi- 
ously they  require  thorough,  orderly  investigation  of  the 
facts,  or  practical,  scientific  thinking;  also  they  often  re- 
quire, just  as  urgently,  personal,  imaginative,  and  emotional 
interest,  or  poetic  thinking;  and  especially  does  any  impor- 
tant matter  require  the  light  of  an  ultimate  moral  prin- 
ciple, or  philosophic  thinking. 

Li  order  to  see  what  this  means  in  a  common  problem, 
let  us  take  the  case  of  the  hard-headed  father  of  our  fresh- 
man. How  did  he  come  to  send  the  boy  to  college  at  all? 
Let  us  press  him  for  an  answer.  A  narrow  sort  of  prac- 
ticality might  have  led  him  to  invest  the  two  or  three 
thousand  dollars  which  college  costs,  and  put  his  son  into 
a  good  business.  A  broader  practicaHty  tells  him  he  may 
get  more  back  another  way.  He  has  statistics  at  his  elbow 
which  show  that,  other  things  being  equal,  the  college 
man  gets  on  better  in  business  than  his  lay  brother.  A 
number  of  calculations  of  ways  and  means  prove  to  him 
that  the  matter  is  feasible,  and  that  he  has  a  right  to 
consult  his  feelings.  Now,  he  has  wanted  his  son  to  have 
the  associations  of  college  life,  the  friends,  the  memories, 
and  that  peculiar  something  which  seems  to  come  as  a 
result.  Being  a  practical  man  he  won't  use  so  vague  a 
word  as  culture;  but  whatever  it  is  that  one  gets  from  the 
contemplation  of  Latin  and  Greek  poems  and  blind  fishes, 
which  makes  life  a  little  more  fun,  a  little  more  vivid, 
which  lets  one  in  behind  the  scenes  and  yet  only  makes 
the  illusion  more  interesting,  he  wishes  to  buy,  at  the 
rate  of  two  or  three  thousand  dollars,  before  putting  his 


THE  COLLEGE  CURRICULUM  201 

son  back  on  the  farm  or  into  a  profession.  This,  moreover, 
is  not  all  his  reason.  It  isn't  just  for  the  sentiment  of  the 
thing  that  he  is  doing  it,  or  just  to  make  his  son  happy,  or 
because  he  wants  to  get  him  into  good  society,  or  because 
he  believes  that  all  this  will  pay  him  back  in  the  end  even 
though  the  boy  doesn't  learn  any  definite  job  at  college. 
There  is  something  else  in  his  mind,  just  as  there  is  some- 
thing else  to  be  put  into  the  back  of  a  young  man's  head 
besides  what  will  push  him  forward.  As  he  has  figured 
it  out,  there  are  going  to  be  some  hard  problems  to  solve 
in  this  country,  harder,  perhaps,  than  any  heretofore; 
and  if  there  are  thousands  of  men  on  every  hand  who 
have  had  the  same  sort  of  general  training  in  thought, 
there  will  be  more  chance  of  their  agreeing  and  working 
out  a  wise  solution  than  if  they  had  always  been  intent 
on  their  own  private  affairs.  So  whether  college  is  prac- 
tical or  not  as  far  as  a  man's  personal  success  is  concerned, 
there  is  a  sort  of  public  generosity  about  it — four  years 
spent,  not  just  on  what  will  help  him  earn  his  own  bread 
and  butter,  but  on  the  humanities,  the  common-stock 
sense  of  the  race.  If  he  is  a  wise  man,  it  will  be  this 
principle,  or  one  of  like  nature,  that  will  become  the  de- 
ciding factor  in  the  situation.  If  he  is  principally  a  gener- 
ous and  sympathetic  man,  he  will  decide  the  matter  more 
largely  from  sentiment.  If  he  is  a  thoroughly  practical 
man,  and  little  else,  he  will  decide  it  as  he  would  decide  a 
matter  of  business,  by  some  guess  at  profit  and  loss.  But 
who  would  decide  such  a  question  solely  from  one  point 
of  view,  or  in  one  mode  of  thought?  The  chances  are 
that  the  decision  is  arrived  at  from  many  points  of  view, 
that  it  is  a  well-rounded,  mature  judgment,  which  thor- 
oughly expresses  the  father's  character. 
Any  problem  may  demand  and  bring  into  play  such  a 


202  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

combination  of  faculties,  and  the  infinite  variety  of  life's 
problems  makes  it  advisable  that  the  mind  should  be  trained 
theoretically  or  ideally  in  preparation  for  all  of  them,  as 
well  as  practically  for  the  few  that  can  be  foreseen.  For 
the  world,  which  we  like  to  call  the  practical  world,  as  if 
we  thoroughly  understood  it,  often  turns  out  to  be  a  fan- 
tastic melodrama  or  an  inexpUcable  puzzle  if  viewed  only 
from  one  standpoint.  Therefore,  the  different  modes  of 
thought,  science,  poetry,  philosophy,  do  not  represent 
arbitrary  processes  in  the  mind  of  man,  but  rather  man's 
effort  to  make  his  character  correspond  more  closely  to 
the  variety  and  complexity  of  Ufe  that  surrounds  him. 

Thus  the  purpose  of  the  college  course  begins  to  be  more 
evident.  Its  curriculum  is  intended  to  fit  practically, 
imaginatively,  and  morally  the  changing  conditions  of 
life.  Its  seeming  rigidity,  its  idealism,  is  based  on  a 
knowledge  of  the  drift  of  those  conditions.  The  demands 
which  the  curriculum  makes  and  the  Umits  which  it  places 
on  the  choice  of  studies  mean  that  the  student  shall  first 
of  all  be  trained  to  think  dexterously  and  variously,  that 
he  shall  not  devote  himself  to  one  kind  of  thinking  about  a 
few  similar  matters.  SpeciaUzation  and  professional  train- 
ing, the  liberal  college  believes,  should,  when  possible, 
come  later,  for  the  very  reason  that  specialization  and  pro- 
fessional training,  when  not  mere  imitation  of  a  method, 
involve  thinking  complexly  and  originally  to  the  highest 
degree. 

If  there  is  enough  in  this  answer  to  warrant  giving  it  a 
further  hearing,  let  us  next  try  to  perceive  the  real  sig- 
nificance of  thinking  Uberally  and  complexly,  or  what  the 
three  modes  of  thought  really  mean. 

Very  few  people,  the  practical  man  will  be  the  fijst  to 
remind  us,  enjoy  or  comprehend  equally  scientific,  poetic. 


THE  COLLEGE  CURRICULUM  203 

and  philosophic  thought.  Every  one  has  his  character- 
istic bent  of  mind.  One  man  is  practical  and  systematic, 
sticking  closely  to  the  immediate  facts;  another  is  vividly 
imaginative  and  emotional,  living  farther  in  expectancy 
and  in  recollection  than  that  other  man;  a  third  is  theo- 
retical and  abstractly  far-sighted,  avoiding,  perhaps,  the 
faults  of  the  first  man,  but  failing  to  secure  the  pleasures 
of  the  second.  If  each  of  these  men  could  choose  his  own 
world,  where  his  characteristic  bent  of  mind  would,  so  to 
speak,  lie  flattest,  he  might  never  need  to  employ  any  but 
his  favorite  or  "natural"  habit  of  thought.  But  there 
are  few  people  so  narrowly  situated.  There  are  few  people 
who  do  not  have  constantly  to  employ  a  combination  of 
these  three  modes,  who  do  not  have  to  be  in  thought  and 
action  at  once  practical  and  imaginative,  closely  accurate 
and  abstractly  far-sighted,  theoretic  and  vivid. 

Now,  it  is  the  art  of  being  thus  temperamentally  versa- 
tile which  prevents  narrow-mindedness.  The  people  we 
call  narrow-minded  are  simply  those  who  fail  to  think 
somewhat  in  all  these  combined  ways.  The  narrow-minded 
scientific  person  will  see  things  only  in  an  external  and 
impersonal  light.  He  decides  life's  problems  by  natural 
law,  by  mechanical  justice,  and  makes,  as  we  say,  cold, 
practical  calculations.  The  narrow-minded  poetic  person 
can  see  things  only  in  a  personal  and  emotional  light. 
He  understands  only  when  he  can  feel;  hence,  if  he  is  rarely 
insincere,  he  may  often  be  unjust.  The  narrow-minded 
philosophic  person — and  though  these  terms  seem  to 
contradict  each  other  at  the  start,  one  may  venture  to 
conclude — ^is  he  who  prefers  to  overlook  real  and  immedi- 
ate contingencies  in  order  to  see  without  embarrassment 
theoretic  or  ideal  relationships.  He  is  apt  to  be  a  fanatic: 
he  is  sometimes  mistaken  for  a  man  of  genius.    None  of 


204  COLLEGE  AND   THE   FUTURE 

these  limited  persons  in  the  face  of  life's  problems  is  ever 
very  successful,  happy,  or  socially  valuable. 

The  college  curriculum  can  be  conceived  as  an  organized 
attempt  to  correct  a  certain  native  tendency  in  every  one 
of  us  to  some  form  of  the  narrow  mind,  and  also  as  an 
organized  attempt  to  help  us  find  and  follow  our  bent, 
which  we  all  must  follow,  but  not  with  our  eyes  too  close 
together.  It  is,  then,  a  preparation  not  in  actual  experi- 
ences and  problems  of  life  so  much  as  in  principles  of 
thinking  that  must  be  understood  by  one  who  solves  those 
problems  with  ultimate  profit  to  himself  and  to  his  fel- 
lows. And  just  here  is  the  chief  part  of  our  answer  to  the 
practical  man.  Actual  experiences  and  problems,  entail- 
ing, as  a  rule,  immediate  necessity  for  judgment,  tend  to 
make  us  think  only  in  the  vein  where  our  chief  facility 
runs;  and  the  man  equipped  only  with  a  technical  educa- 
tion will  frequently  mistake  this  facility  of  judgment  for 
wisdom,  and  fail  to  take  advantage  of  larger  issues  than 
those  involved  by  immediate  necessity.  He  has  too  often 
formed  habits  of  imitation  instead  of  far-reaching  methods 
of  thought.  College  is  a  time  for  strengthening  ourselves 
in  such  a  way  that  we  shall  expand  many  faculties,  instead 
of  sharpening  but  one,  in  the  tests  of  practical  necessity. 

Obviously  it  is  not  technical  skill  itself  that  produces 
one-sidedness.  But  without  some  sort  of  liberal  outlook 
on  life,  technical  skill  is  not  always  of  real  benefit  to  a 
man;  and,  indeed,  it  sometimes  appears  to  the  short- 
sighted to  be  the  ironical  means  of  enslaving  him.  For 
facility  at  some  minor  trick  has  often  prevented  a  man 
from  rising  at  will  beyond  it.  Does  not  Mr.  Debs,  the 
socialist,  call  attention  constantly  to  the  folly  of  narrow 
vocational  training  for  those  who  are  not  to  control  the 
machinery  of  their  craft?    Lack  of  ownership  in  this  case 


THE  COLLEGE  CURRICULUM  205 

is  similar,  in  ultimate  effect,  to  a  lack  of  capabilities. 
One-sidedness  comes  not  from  a  man's  positive  capabilities 
in  one  direction,  but  from  his  lack  of  them  in  any  other. 
More  than  this,  it  is  only  in  the  most  imitative  and  slender 
techniques  that  there  is  real  danger  of  one-sidedness 
through  too  complete  devotion.  Supremacy  in  most 
specialties  is  reached  from  broad  foundations,  and  means 
inevitably  a  fairly  broad  outlook.  Yet  it  remains  true 
that  in  all  technical  skill  there  is  both  a  bondage  and  a 
freedom,  the  relation  oi  which  describes  the  character 
and  the  culture  of  the  craftsman — what  is  one  man's 
bondage  being  often  another  man's  freedom. 

The  liberal  curriculum  furnishes  to  every  student  a 
criticism  of  his  narrow-mindedness.  It  makes  an  attempt 
to  show  him  how  to  be  rid  of  his  natural  encumbrances, 
and  how  to  utilize  the  valuable  elements  that  remain.  It 
furnishes  him  with  a  specially  balanced  experience  from 
which  he  may  learn  to  recognize  his  real  mind,  his  whole 
mind,  through  a  comparison  of  his  facilities  in  the  various 
modes  of  thought.  This  is  why  a  student  in  the  liberal 
college  of  arts  and  sciences  takes  a  course  in  zoology, 
spends  half  a  year  reading  Goethe's  Faust,  and  at  the 
same  time  follows  the  reasoning  of  a  philosopher  like 
Herbert  Spencer.  For  one  great  purpose  of  the  curriculum 
is  to  have  him  see  the  same  principles  of  life  from  quite 
different  angles;  and,  in  the  case  just  cited,  merely  to  per- 
ceive that  they  are  the  same  principles  is  the  kind  of  cure 
for  the  narrow  mind  which  shows  supremely  the  soimd- 
ness  of  traditional  education. 

Here  is  a  man  who  from  his  freshman  year  follows  easily 
the  literal  reasoning  of  mathematics  or  polirical  science, 
and  the  arbitrary  reasoning  of  grammar  or  chemistry;  yet 
he  needs  much  pracdse,  as  he  says,  before  he  can  follow 


2o6  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

thought  that  continues  by  means  of  suggestion,  emotion, 
rhythm,  and  symbol,  in  a  poem.  He  can  see  plainly  the 
perspective  of  a  figure  in  conic  sections,  and  yet  he  fails 
to  be  impressed  by  the  perfect  proportions  of  a  great 
statue.  All  through  his  college  course  he  prefers  science 
in  any  of  its  systems  to  poetry  in  any  of  its  forms.  He 
thereby  discovers  and  tests  practically  his  bent.  He  would 
make  a  great  mistake  not  to  follow  this  clew,  not  to  become, 
let  us  say,  an  engineer.  Yet  the  curriculum,  because  it 
is  a  liberal  plan  of  study,  insists  on  a  training  in  each  phase 
of  thought,  the  imaginative  as  well  as  the  Hteral;  and  the 
engineer  will  some  day  understand,  not  alone  theoretically 
but  practically,  while  trying  to  solve  a  problem  that  is  as 
much  a  problem  of  human  wills  as  it  is  a  problem  for  his 
technique,  that  science  is  not  the  only  practical  part  of 
learning. 

The  true  cure  for  one-sidedness,  and  the  most  impor- 
tant force  that  all  through  life,  and  especially  in  youth, 
makes  for  liberal  culture,  is  not,  however,  discovered  out- 
side ourselves.  It  grows  normally  from  within.  It  is 
curiosity,  not  opportunity,  that  primarily  counts.  They 
are,  of  course,  counterparts,  these  two;  they  foster  each 
other.  But  man  is  originally  an  adventurer,  and  his  world 
of  opportunity,  whatever  it  may  be,  is  largely  an  extension 
of  his  own  spirit.  Variety  is  the  spice  of  life,  but  curiosity 
is  the  spice  of  learning.  It  is  the  curiosity  of  students  that 
in  great  measure  produces  variety  in  the  modem  curriculum. 
Curiosity  is  the  typical  college  virtue.  It  covers  the 
largest  number  of  college  faults.  Nobody  has  any  busi- 
ness in  college  who  is  not  forearmed  with  at  least  a  fair 
share  of  it.  And  by  curiosity  we  mean  the  desire  and 
the  energy  to  know  something  of  the  variety  of  life.  There 
are,  however,  two  kinds  of  curiosity,  and  they  distinguish 


THE  COLLEGE  CURRICULUM  207 

college  students  rather  sharply  one  from  another:  curiosity 
as  to  facts,  and  curiosity  that  extends  to  modes  of  thought 
about  facts — curiosity,  that  is,  about  men's  minds. 

Look  at  the  curriculum  of  a  modern  college  and  you  will 
see  exactly  what  this  means.  Here  is  one  group  of  pro- 
fessors, grown  old  in  their  specialty,  making  it  their  chief 
aim  to  persuade  the  student  of  the  importance  of  the 
scientific  attitude  toward  nature.  They  keep  him  think- 
ing, let  us  say,  about  rocks  and  mountains  geologically,  or 
about  the  starry  universe  astronomically,  and  rarely  vary 
their  point  of  view  from  the  scientific.  Another  group  is 
intent  on  showing  him  nature  as  it  appears  in  the  eye  and 
mind  of  artists,  on  contemplating  rocks  and  mountains, 
not  for  evidences  of  thrust  in  the  earth's  cooling  surface, 
but  as  poetic  images  of  a  heightened  mental  state  or  of  a 
moral  purpose.  From  being  an  external  fact,  the  imi- 
verse  here  becomes  a  sensation.  With  a  third  group  the 
student  is  asked  to  assume  quite  a  new,  and,  as  it  at  first 
may  appear  to  him,  a  rather  unnatural  attitude  toward 
nature.  The  philosophers  ask  him  how  he  knows  that 
mountains  and  rocks  exist  at  all,  externally  and  sensa- 
tionally, how  he  knows  that  they  are  not  pure  concep- 
tions of  the  mind.  The  student  has  suddenly  to  examine 
the  character  of  his  knowledge  from  a  totally  new  angle. 
He  sees  much  in  the  character  of  science  and  of  art,  in 
the  relationship  of  the  geologist's  mountain  to  the  poet's 
mountain,  that  he  never  dreamed  of  with  the  poet  or  saw 
clearly  with  the  geologist.  And  if  at  first  this  may  not 
have  appeared  a  very  useful  exercise,  now  it  is  out  of  this 
defined  relationship  that  the  philosopher  goes  on  to  derive 
a  theory  of  life  and  of  the  whole  universe  which  is  both 
science  and  poetry,  which  is  true  to  fact  and  not  illogical 
in  fancy,  which  gives  a  new  and  far-reaching  reason  for 


2o8  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

further  scientific  and  for  further  poetic  investigation,  and 
which  serves  to  idealize  the  final  mysteries  that  neither 
science  nor  poetry  can  solve.  The  liberal  curriculum  in 
science,  poetry,  and  philosophy,  when  intelligently  pre- 
scribed and  devotedly  followed,  can  be  the  means  of  stimu- 
lating the  curiosity  of  youth,  of  collecting  and  synthesizing 
its  experiences,  of  rendering  valuable,  in  the  end,  its  en- 
thusiasm, doubts,  and  disillusionments.  Its  purpose  is  the 
unity  and  maturity  of  the  mind.  "There  is  no  enlarge- 
ment," says  Cardinal  Newman,  "imless  there  be  a  compari- 
son of  ideas  one  with  another,  as  they  come  before  the 
mind,  and  a  systematizing  of  them.  We  feel  our  minds  to 
be  growing  and  expanding  then,  when  we  not  only  learn, 
but  refer  what  we  learn  to  what  we  know  already."  This 
is  education;  this  is  the  discovery  of  the  world  and  of 
ourselves. 

But  we  come  to  college  for  special  as  well  as  liberal 
reasons.  How  does  liberal  education  bring  us  to  the  prac- 
tical consideration  in  this  whole  matter — our  knowledge 
of  our  own  special  abilities  and  the  choice  of  a  career? 
How  does  the  curriculum  effect  that? 

The  answer  is  already  implied.  It  is  an  obvious  corol- 
lary to  the  chief  proposition,  that,  in  learning  to  think  in 
each  mode  and  in  combinations  of  modes  about  facts  and 
ideas,  we  learn  to  perceive,  as  a  matter  of  course,  what  sort 
of  facts  and  ideas  can  be  more  naturally,  more  vividly, 
more  thoroughly  comprehended  in  one  mode  than  in  an- 
other according  to  their  intrinsic  nature  and  to  the  pur- 
poses of  the  thinker.  It  is  a  necessary  part  of  this  gen- 
eral exercise  that  one  all  the  time,  consciously  and  un- 
consciously, trains  himself  according  to  his  natural  bent. 
In  the  liberal  college,  it  is  true,  he  must  do  it  ideally.  But 
to  go  about  the  discovery  of  a  natural  bent  by  studying  in 


THE  COLLEGE  CURRICULUM  209 

succession  a  series  of  professions  and  crafts  before  a  man 
has  many  whisperings  of  what  is  within  him,  before  his 
general  and  ideal  knowledge  has  been  enlarged,  is  usually 
a  wasteful  performance.  It  is  a  forcing  process  that  rarely 
secures  the  maturest  result.  It  is  as  apt  to  lead  to  a 
temporary  bending  as  to  discovery  or  development  of  the 
true  bent.  It  is  a  method  that  counts  for  its  success  on 
the  good-humored  adaptability  of  human  nature  rather 
than  on  its  originality.  The  liberal  method  is,  on  the  other 
hand,  more  apt  to  be  truly  economic  and  far-sighted.  If 
a  "man  understands  the  essential  character  of  the  courses 
he  has  taken  in  college  as  types  of  thinking,  whether  or 
not  they  point  directly  toward  some  profession  or  craft, 
if  he  can  differentiate  his  interest  and  ability  in  each  type, 
he  has  already  the  surest  indication  of  his  tastes  and  the 
most  practical  advice  about  his  future. 

To  illustrate  this  specifically  is  difficult  for  the  reason 
that  the  temperament  of  the  individual  student  must  play 
the  chief  part  in  our  calculations,  and  Jones  and  Smith, 
who  seem  to  be  men  of  similar  tastes  and  abilities,  arid 
who  have  chosen  precisely  the  same  college  courses,  become 
of  their  own  choice,  and  after  a  great  deal  of  effort,  one  a 
doctor  and  the  other  a  lawyer.  But  for  the  sake  of  de- 
scribing the  estimate  which  college  makes  of  temperament, 
let  us  suppose  that  Smith  has  cared  most  for  courses  that 
open  an  unending  problem,  like  calculus,  which  has  lured 
him  from  year  to  year  through  mazes  of  algebra  to  mo- 
mentary applications,  only  to  suggest  again  new  vistas 
of  abstraction.  If  this  is  the  kind  of  thing  Smith  likes 
best,  the  chances  are,  other  things  being  equal,  that  he 
should  take  up  some  profession  where  there  are  problems 
that  may  continue  more  or  less  romantically  through  life. 
Medicine  and  surgery  offer  many  such  problems.     If,  then, 


2IO     COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

Smith  has  found  the  courses  in  anatomy  and  biology  also 
to  his  taste  he  will  be  fairly  safe  in  becoming  a  doctor; 
if  he  has  not  he  might  become  an  engineer,  whose  prob- 
lems nowadays  are  surely  as  long  as  any  man's.  Suppos- 
ing again  that  Jones,  whose  character  and  energies  are  to 
be  estimated  by  this  purely  hypothetical  method,  has  done 
the  following  things.  He  has  read  The  Life  of  Sir  Walter 
Scott  and  has  been  far  more  interested  in  the  technicalities 
of  Scott's  financial  status  than  in  any  other  phase  of  that 
absorbing  book;  also  he  has  read  Browning,  but  without 
great  admiration  till  he  reached  the  story  of  The  Ring 
and  the  Book;  and  he  has  studied  general  European  his- 
tory with  interest,  but  knew,  as  soon  as  he  began  a  course 
in  English  constitutional  history  and  dipped  into  Stubbs's 
original  documents,  that  he  had  "got  somewhere"  at  last. 
Even  from  such  slight  evidence  Jones  would  be  fairly  safe 
in  trying  the  law  or  a  highly  systematized  business. 

But  you  must  not  work  it  out  too  narrowly,  for  one  of 
the  virtues  of  the  Uberal  curriculum  is  that  it  rarely  binds 
a  man  to  some  preconceived  specific  notion  of  his  destiny. 
The  initial  strictness  of  its  demands  is  ultimately  the  very 
thing  that  makes  possible  the  flexibility  and  range  of  the 
student's  choice.  College  graduates,  more  than  any 
other  class  of  men,  do  what  they  wish,  not  because  of  su- 
perior social  position  but  because  of  their  emancipating 
knowledge  of  the  field  of  opportunity  and  of  themselves. 

That  such  a  type  of  knowledge  results  from  the  liberal 
curriculum  in  greater  degree  than  from  a  curriculum 
chiefly  vocational  and  technical  in  character,  need  not 
lead  us  into  a  futile  comparison  with  the  professional 
schools.  They  have  their  own  definite  and  unassailable 
purposes.  They  do  not  require  defense  or  even  explana- 
tion.    What  is  necessary  to  keep  in  mind  is  the  grave  re- 


THE  COLLEGE  CURRICULUM  211 

sponsibility  that  rests  on  those  who  have  the  arrangement 
of  the  Uberal  curriculum  in  their  hands.  Li  the  constant 
and  somewhat  radical  revision  necessary  to  make  it  ac- 
cord with  modern  life  and  our  era  of  radical  progress, 
there  is  no  need,  because  of  the  existence  of  technical 
schools  on  every  hand,  of  forgetting  what  the  central  idea 
in  the  liberal  curriculum  has  meant.  No  new  quality  and 
no  other  meaning  can  safely  take  the  place  of  that. 


XIV 

LOSING  ONE'S  RELIGION:  A  STUDENT 
EXPERIENCE  » 

HENRY  THOMAS   COLESTOCK 

There  is  one  word  that  some  of  us  who  look  back  on 
our  college  life  wish  had  been  spoken  to  us  in  the  midst 
of  our  college  course;  for,  lacking  this  word  of  explanation, 
we  have  had  to  learn  ab  initio,  in  the  severe  school  of 
personal  experience,  one  of  the  lessons  worked  out  by 
the  race  through  centuries  of  conflict.  Not  infrequently 
has  it  happened,  in  working  out  this  problem  for  ourselves, 
that  the  process,  compressing  into  a  few  months  or  years 
the  anxiety,  the  anguish,  of  a  racial  experience,  brings  to 
the  individual  moments  and  days  never  to  be  forgotten. 
But  not  all  learn  the  lesson  when  left  to  themselves,  and 
this  is  an  irreparable  injury  to  the  individual;  for  failure 
means  indifference  or  even  hostility  to  the  most  helpful 
things  in  Ufe.  I  refer  to  the  process  of  adjustment  between 
religious  faith  and  a  growing  knowledge. 

In  the  experience  of  the  race  this  problem  of  adjust- 
ment between  religious  faith  and  a  growing  knowledge  is 
one  of  the  great  problems  of  every  period  characterized 
by  intellectual  progress.  Nor  is  it  difficult  to  understand 
the  reason  for  this  age-long  conflict  between  faith  and 
knowledge.     The  explanation  is  a  psychological  one. 

Religious  faith  being  one  of  the  dearest  and  most  sacred 

^  Reprinted  through  the  courtesy  of  Henry  Thomas  Colestock  and  of 
The  OuUook. 

3X3 


LOSING  ONE'S  RELIGION  213 

possessions  of  mankind,  it  is  natural  to  transfer  to  our 
explanations  of  faith  the  sacredness  of  faith  itself.  Fail- 
ing to  make  this  distinction  between  rehgious  faith,  which 
is  a  life  of  fellowship  with  God,  and  the  explanations  of 
this  fellowship,  which  necessarily  must  vary  according  to 
the  temperament  and  the  enlightenment  of  the  individual, 
the  problem  of  adjustment  between  religious  faith  and  the 
growing  knowledge  of  the  age  has  at  times  absorbed  the 
attention  and  the  strength  of  nations. 

The  same  problem  of  adjustment  between  faith  and 
knowledge  confronts  the  student.  He  comes  to  college  with 
certain  religious  ideas  and  beliefs,  and  in  the  progress  of 
his  studies  finds  an  antagonism  between  his  religious  be- 
liefs and  his  growing  knowledge.  At  first  he  puts  aside  as 
false  whatever  does  not  accord  with  his  religious  opinions. 
Students  have  been  known  to  go  through  college  rejecting 
every  position  in  science  or  philosophy  which  did  not  har- 
monize with  their  inherited  religious  beliefs.  This,  how- 
ever, is  not  true  of  many  students.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
reasonableness  of  the  conclusions  of  science  and  of  philoso- 
phy wins  the  assent  of  the  student  even  against  his  will. 
But  it  seems  impossible  for  him  to  accept  these  conclusions 
and  retain  his  rehgious  beliefs  which  he  thinks  of  as  his 
religion.  He  may  fight  for  a  time  the  rising  tide  of  new 
ideas,  but  sooner  or  later  he  finds  resistance  useless.  He 
awakens  to  the  fact  that  these  new  ideas,  hostile  to  his  re- 
ligion though  they  be,  as  it  appears  to  him,  are  possessing 
him. 

Now  ensues  one  of  the  tragic  struggles  of  his  life.  As 
the  new  ideas  possess  him,  they  undermine  certain  religious 
beliefs  which  he  holds  on  to  with  terrible  earnestness  for  a 
while,  only  to  find  at  last  that  these  beUefs  do  not  mean  to 
him   what   they   once   did.     Few   individuals   who   have 


214  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

passed  through  the  heartrending  experience  of  losing  their 
religion  can  ever  forget  that  experience.  Some,  after  a 
very  trying  and  painful  struggle,  learn  that  religious  faith 
and  religious  opinions  are  two  very  different  things;  others 
never  learn  this  lesson,  and,  having  lost  their  early  religious 
opinions,  think  they  have  lost  their  religion  and  easily 
drift  into  an  indifference  toward  the  duties  and  claims  of 
the  religious  Hfe.  When  approached,  such  persons  will 
tell  you,  in  moments  of  confidence,  that  religious  matters 
do  not  mean  anything  to  them  now — they  had  to  give  all 
that  up  in  college. 

It  is  possible,  of  course,  to  lose  one's  religion  in  college; 
to  degenerate  in  character,  to  become  immoral  and  irre- 
ligious; as  it  is  possible  to  become  dissolute  anywhere. 
But  I  have  not  at  present  such  a  class  of  individuals  in 
mind;  but  rather  those  whose  characters  have  not  de- 
generated, but  whose  religious  opinions  no  longer  mean  to 
them  what  they  once  did,  and  who  think  consequently 
that  they  have  lost  their  religion. 

The  word  which  some  of  us  wish  had  been  spoken  to  us 
who  have  passed  through  one  phase  or  another  of  this 
struggle  of  adjustment  between  faith  and  knowledge  is 
this:  Religious  faith  is  a  life  of  fellowship  with  God;  re- 
ligion is  the  living  of  one's  life  in  view  of  this  fellowship; 
religious  beliefs  are  explanations  of  this  life  of  fellowship 
with  God,  and  it  is  reasonable  to  expect  that  these  ex- 
planations will  vary  according  to  our  intellectual  progress, 
being  different  with  the  same  individual  in  different  stages 
of  his  development;  and  differing  also  in  the  thought  of 
different  persons  owing  to  training  and  temperament. 

With  this  distinction  between  religious  faith  and  religious 
beliefs  firmly  grasped,  the  student  need  not  feel  that  he  is 
losing  his  religion  when  he  is  being  compelled  to  give  up 


LOSING  ONE'S  RELIGION  215 

some  of  his  early,  inadequate  religious  conceptions.  Rather 
he  will  welcome  all  new  ideas  which  enable  him  to  explain 
this  fellowship  and  to  imderstand  more  fully  its  meaning. 
With  this  distinction  between  religious  faith  and  the  ex- 
planations of  faith  kept  in  mind,  the  student  can  fearlessly 
investigate  any  subject  in  science  or  history  or  philosophy 
without  disturbing  his  religion,  for  he  thinks  of  religion  as 
a  life  in  fellowship  with  God;  but  as  new  light  dawns  he 
may  be  compelled  to  reinterpret  all  of  the  soul's  relations 
with  God.  His  explanations  of  faith  change;  his  faith 
abides,  grows,  develops. 


XV 

THE  RELIGION  OF  A  COLLEGE  STUDENT  ^ 

FRANCIS   G.   PEABODY 

We  have  heard  many  appeals  to  the  college  student 
concerning  his  duty  to  the  Christian  church.  He  should 
be,  it  is  urged,  a  more  constant  attendant  at  its  worship; 
he  should  commit  himself  more  openly  to  its  cause;  he 
should  guard  himself  against  the  infidelity  and  indecision 
which  attack  him  with  such  strategy  under  the  conditions 
of  college  life.  May  it  not  be  of  advantage,  however,  to 
consider  this  relation  from  the  opposite  point  of  view? 
May  it  not  be  instructive  to  inquire  what  the  Christian 
church  must  provide  in  order  to  meet  the  needs  of  an  edu- 
cated young  man,  and  what  the  college  student  demands 
that  the  church  shall  teach  and  illustrate?  What  has  a 
young  man  the  right  to  demand  as  a  condition  of  his  loyalty 
and  devotion?  What  is  there  which  the  Christian  church 
must  learn  concerning  the  character  and  ideals  of  a  normal, 
educated,  modem  youth  before  it  can  hope  to  lead  the 
heart  of  such  a  youth  to  an  unconstrained  obedience? 
What  is  the  religion  of  a  college  student? 

There  are,  of  course,  certain  limitations  to  such  an  in- 
quiry. We  must  assume  on  both  sides  open-mindedness, 
teachableness,  seriousness,  and  good  faith.  We  cannot 
take  into  account  either  a  foolish  student  or  a  foohsh 

*  Reprinted  through  the  courtesy  of  Francis  G.  Peabody  and  of  The 
Forum. 

216 


THE  RELIGION  OF  A  STUDENT  217 

church.  There  are,  on  the  one  hand,  some  youths  of  the 
college  age  whom  no  conceivable  adaptation  of  religious 
teaching  can  hope  to  reach.  They  are  self-absorbed, 
self-conscious,  self-satisfied,  self-conceited.  There  is  Httle 
that  the  church  can  do  for  them  but  to  pray  that,  as  they 
grow  older,  they  may  grow  more  humble,  and,  therefore, 
more  teachable.  On  the  other  hand,  there  are  some 
methods  of  religious  activity  which  cannot  reasonably 
anticipate  the  co-operation  of  educated  men.  Here  and 
there  an  imaginative  young  person  may  be  won  by  emo- 
tional appeals  or  ecclesiastical  picturesqueness;  but  the 
normal  type  of  thoughtful  youth  demands  of  the  church 
soberness,  intellectual  satisfaction,  and  verifiable  claims. 
We  must  dismiss  from  consideration  both  the  imreasoning 
youth  and  the  unreasonable  church.  We  set  before  our- 
selves, on  the  one  hand,  an  alert,  open-minded,  well-trained 
youth,  looking  out  with  eager  eyes  into  the  mystery  of  the 
universe;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  a  thoughtful,  candid, 
sensible  church,  resting  its  claim  not  on  tradition  or  passion, 
but  on  its  perception  and  maintenance  of  verifiable  truth. 
How  shall  these  two  factors  of  modern  Ufe — the  chief 
factors  of  its  future  stabiHty — the  life  of  thoughtful  youth 
and  the  truth  of  the  Christian  religion,  come  to  know  and 
help  each  other;  and  what  are  the  traits  of  Christian  teach- 
ing which  must  be  unmistakably  recognized  before  it  can 
commend  itself  to  the  young  student  of  the  modem  world  ? 
To  these  questions  it  must  be  answered,  that  the  religion 
of  a  college  student  is  marked,  first  of  all,  by  a  passion  for 
reality.  No  effort  of  the  church  is  more  mistaken  than 
the  attempt  to  win  the  loyalty  of  intelligent  young  people 
by  multiplying  the  accessories  or  incidentals  of  the  religious 
life — its  ecclesiastical  forms,  its  emotional  ecstasies,  its 
elaborateness  of  organization,  its  opportunities  of  socia- 


2i8  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

bility.  The  modem  college  student,  while  in  many  re- 
spects very  immature,  is  extraordinarily  alert  in  his  dis- 
cernment of  anything  which  seems  to  him  of  the  nature  of 
indirectness  or  unreality.  He  has  a  passion  for  reality. 
The  first  demand  he  makes  of  his  companions  or  his  teachers 
is  the  demand  for  sincerity,  straightforwardness,  and  sim- 
plicity. He  is  not  likely  to  be  won  to  the  Christian  life 
by  any  external  persuasion,  laboriously  planned  "to  draw 
in  young  people,"  and  to  make  religion  seem  companion- 
able and  pleasant.  These  incidental  activities  of  the 
church  have  their  unquestionable  usefulness  as  expressions 
of  Christian  sentiment  and  service,  but  they  are  misap- 
plied when  converted  into  decoys.  They  are  corollaries 
of  religious  experience,  not  preliminaries  of  it;  they  are 
what  one  wants  to  do  when  he  is  a  Christian,  but  not 
what  makes  a  thoughtful  man  believe  in  Christ.  The 
modern  young  man  sees  these  things  just  as  they  are. 
Indeed,  he  is  inclined  to  be  on  his  guard  against  their 
strategy.  He  will  nibble  at  the  bait,  but  he  will  not  take 
the  hook.  He  will  consume  the  refreshments  of  the 
church,  he  will  serve  on  its  committees,  he  will  enjoy  its 
aesthetic  effects,  but  he  still  withholds  himself  from  the 
personal  consecration  which  these  were  designed  to  induce. 
He  will  accept  no  substitute  for  reality.  He  wants  the 
best.  He  is  not  old  enough  to  be  diffident  or  circuitous  in 
his  desires;  he  does  not  linger  in  the  outer  courts  of  truth; 
he  marches  straight  into  the  Holy  of  Holies,  and  lifts  the 
veil  from  the  central  mystery.  Thus  the  church  often 
fails  of  its  mission  to  the  student,  because  it  imagines  him 
to  be  frivolous  and  indifferent,  when  in  reality  he  is  tre- 
mendously in  earnest  and  passionately  sincere. 

And  suppose,  on  the  other  hand,  that  the  church  meets 
this  candid  creature  just  where  he  is,  and,  instead  of  offer- 


THE  RELIGION  OF  A  STUDENT  219 

ing  him  accessories  and  incidentals  as  adapted  to  his 
frivolous  mind,  presents  to  him,  with  unadorned  and 
sober  reasonableness,  the  realities  of  religion.  What  dis- 
covery is  the  church  then  likely  to  make  ?  It  may  discover, 
to  its  own  surprise,  and  often  to  the  surprise  of  the  youth 
himself,  an  unanticipated  susceptibiUty  in  him  to  religious 
reahty,  and  a  singular  freshness  and  vitaUty  of  reHgious 
experience.  A  great  many  people  imagine  that  the  years 
from  seventeen  to  twenty-two  are  not  likely  to  be  years  of 
natural  piety.  The  world,  it  is  urged,  is  just  making  its 
appeal  to  the  flesh  and  to  the  mind  with  overmastering 
power,  while  the  experience  of  life  has  not  yet  created  for 
itself  a  stable  religion.  Fifteen  years  ago  it  was  deter- 
mined in  Harvard  University  that  religion  should  be  no 
longer  regarded  as  a  part  of  academic  discipline,  but  should 
be  offered  to  youth  as  a  privilege  and  an  opportunity. 
It  was  then  argued  by  at  least  one  learned  person  that  the 
system  was  sure  to  fail  because,  by  the  very  conditions  of 
their  growth,  young  men  were  unsusceptible  to  religion. 
They  had  outgrown,  he  urged,  the  religion  of  their  child- 
hood, and  had  not  yet  grown  into  the  religion  of  their 
maturity;  so  that  a  plan  which  rested  on  faith  in  the  in- 
herent rehgiousness  of  young  men  was  doomed  to  disap- 
pointment. If,  however,  the  voluntary  system  of  religion 
applied  to  university  life  has  proved  anything  in  these 
fifteen  years,  it  has  proved  the  essentially  reUgious  nature 
of  the  normal,  educated  young  man  of  America.  To 
offer  reUgion  not  as  an  obligation  of  college  life,  but  as  its 
supreme  privilege,  was  an  act  of  faith  in  young  men.  It 
assumed  that  when  religion  was  honestly  and  intelligently 
presented  to  the  mind  of  youth  it  would  receive  a  reverent 
and  responsive  recognition. 
The  issue  of  this  undertaking  has  serious  lessons  for  the 


220     COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

Christian  church.  It  disposes  altogether  of  the  meagre 
expectation  with  which  the  life  of  youth  is  frequently 
regarded.  I  have  heard  a  preacher,  addressing  a  college 
audience,  announce  that  just  as  childhood  was  so  assailed 
by  infantile  diseases  and  mishaps  that  it  was  surprising  to 
see  any  child  grow  up,  so  youth  was  assailed  by  so  many 
sins  that  it  was  surprising  to  see  any  young  man  grow  up 
imstained.  There  is  no  rational  basis  for  this  enervating 
scepticism.  The  fact  is  that  it  is  natural  for  a  young 
man  to  be  good,  just  as  it  is  natural  for  a  child  to  grow  up. 
A  much  wiser  word  was  spoken  by  one  of  my  colleagues, 
who,  having  been  asked  to  address  an  audience  on  the  tempr 
tations  of  the  college  life,  said  that  he  should  devote 
himself  chiefly  to  its  temptations  to  excellence.  A  col- 
lege boy,  that  is  to  say,  is  not,  as  many  suppose,  a  pe- 
culiarly misguided  and  essentially  light-minded  person. 
He  is,  on  the  contrary,  set  in  conditions  which  tempt  to 
excellence  and  is  peculiarly  responsive  to  every  sincere 
appeal  to  his  higher  Ufe.  Behind  the  mask  of  light- 
mindedness  or  self-assertion  which  he  assimies,  his  interior 
life  is  wrestling  with  fundamental  problems,  as  Jacob 
wrestled  with  the  angel  and  would  not  let  it  go  imtil  it 
blessed  him.  "Your  young  men,"  said  the  prophet, 
with  deep  insight  into  the  nature  of  youth,  "shall  see 
visions."  They  are  our  natural  idealists.  The  shades 
of  the  prison-house  of  common  life  have  not  yet  closed 
about  their  sense  of  the  romantic,  the  heroic,  the  noble. 

To  this  susceptibility  of  youth  the  church,  if  it  is  wise, 
must  address  its  teaching.  It  must  believe  in  a  young  man, 
even  when  he  does  not  believe  in  himself.  It  must  attempt 
no  adaptation  of  truth  to  immaturity  or  indifference.  It 
must  assume  that  a  young  man,  even  though  he  disguises 
the  fact  by  every  subterfuge  of  modesty  or  mock  defiance. 


THE  RELIGION  OF  A  STUDENT  221 

is  a  creature  of  spiritual  vision,  and  that  his  secret  desire 
is  to  have  that  vision  interpreted  and  prolonged.  When 
Jesus  met  the  young  men  whom  he  wanted  for  his  dis- 
ciples, his  first  relation  with  them  was  one  of  absolute, 
and  apparently  unjustified,  confidence.  He  believed  in 
them  and  in  their  spiritual  responsiveness.  He  disclosed 
to  them  the  secrets  of  their  own  hearts.  He  dismissed 
accessories  and  revealed  realities.  He  did  not  cheapen 
religion  or  make  small  demands.  He  bade  these  men 
leave  all  and  follow  him.  He  took  for  granted  that  their 
nature  called  for  the  religion  he  had  to  offer,  and  he  gave 
it  to  them  without  qualification  or  fear.  The  young  men 
for  whom  the  accidental  aspects  of  religion  were  thus 
stripped  away  and  its  heart  laid  bare,  leaped  to  meet  this 
revelation  of  reaUty.  "We  have  found  the  Messiah," 
they  told  each  other.  They  had  been  beUeved  in  even 
before  they  believed  in  themselves,  and  that  which  the  new 
sense  of  reality  disclosed  to  them  as  real,  they  at  last  in 
reality  became. 

Such  is  the  first  aspect  of  the  religion  of  the  student — 
its  demand  for  reality.  To  reach  the  heart  of  an  educated 
young  man  the  message  of  the  church  must  be  unequiv- 
ocal, uncompUcated,  genuine,  masculine,  direct,  real. 
This,  however,  is  but  a  part  of  a  second  quality  in  the  re- 
ligion of  educated  youth.  The  teaching  of  the  church  to 
which  such  a  mind  will  listen  must  be,  still  further,  con- 
sistent with  truth  as  discerned  elsewhere.  It  must  in- 
volve no  partition  of  life  between  thinking  and  believing. 
It  must  be,  that  is  to  say,  a  rational  religion.  The  re- 
ligion of  a  college  student  is  one  expression  of  his  rational 
life.  To  say  this  is  not  to  say  that  religion  must  be  stripped 
of  its  mystery  or  reduced  to  the  level  of  a  natural  science 
in  order  to  commend  itself  to  educated  youth.     On  the 


222  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

contrary,  the  tendencies  of  the  higher  education  lead  in 
precisely  the  opposite  direction.  They  lead  to  the  con- 
viction that  all  truth,  whether  approached  by  the  way 
of  science,  philosophy,  art,  or  religion,  opens  before  a 
serious  student  into  a  world  of  mystery,  a  sense  of  the 
unattained,  a  spacious  region  of  idealism,  where  one 
enters  with  reverence  and  awe.  Instead  of  demanding 
that  religion  shall  be  reduced  to  the  level  of  other  knowl- 
edge, it  will  appear  to  such  a  student  more  reasonable  to 
demand  that  all  forms  of  knowledge  shall  be  lifted  into  the 
realm  of  faith,  mystery,  and  idealism.  It  is,  however, 
quite  another  matter  to  discover  in  the  teaching  of  religion 
any  fundamental  inconsistency  with  the  spirit  of  research 
and  the  method  of  proof  which  the  student  elsewhere 
candidly  accepts;  and  we  may  be  sure  that  it  is  this  sense 
of  inconsistency  which  is  the  chief  source  of  any  reaction 
from  religious  influence  now  to  be  observed  among  edu- 
cated young  men. 

Under  the  voluntary  system  of  religion  at  Harvard 
University  we  have  established  a  meeting-place,  known  as 
"The  Preacher's  Room,"  where  the  minister  conducting 
morning  prayers  spends  some  hours  each  day  in  free  and 
imconstrained  intimacy  with  such  students  as  may  seek 
him.  This  room  has  witnessed  many  frank  confessions 
of  religious  difficulty  and  denial,  and  as  each  member  of 
our  staff  of  preachers  recalls  his  experiences  at  the  uni- 
versity he  testifies  that  the  most  fruitful  hours  of  his 
service  have  been  those  of  confidential  conference  in  the 
privacy  of  The  Preacher's  Room.  But  if  one  were  further 
called  to  describe  those  instances  of  religious  bewilderment 
and  helplessness  which  have  seemed  to  him  in  his  official 
duty  most  pathetic  and  most  superfluous,  he  would  not 
hesitate  to  admit  that  they  were  the  by  no  means  infre- 


THE  RELIGION  OF  A  STUDENT  223 

quent  cases  of  young  men  who  have  been  brought  up  m  a 
conception  of  religion  which  becomes  untenable  under 
the  conditions  of  university  life.  A  restricted  denomina- 
tionalism,  a  backward-looking  ecclesiasticism,  an  ignorant 
defiance  of  biblical  criticism,  and,  no  less  emphatically,  an 
intolerant  and  supercilious  Uberalism — these  habits  of 
mind  become  simply  impossible  when  a  young  man  finds 
himself  thrown  into  a  world  of  wide  learning,  religious 
liberty,  and  intellectual  hospitality.  Then  ensues,  for 
many  a  young  mind,  a  pathetic  and  even  tragic  period  of 
spiritual  hesitation  and  reconstruction.  The  young  man 
wanders  through  dry  places,  seeking  rest  and  finding  none; 
and  it  is  quite  impossible  for  his  mind  to  say:  "I  will  re- 
turn unto  my  house  from  whence  I  came  out."  Mean- 
time his  loving  parents  and  his  anxious  pastor  observe  with 
trembling  his  defection  from  the  old  ways,  deplore  the  in- 
fluence of  the  university  upon  religious  faith,  and  pray  for  a 
restoration  of  belief  which  is  as  contrary  to  nature  as  the 
restoration  of  the  oak  to  the  acorn  from  which  it  grew. 

Now,  in  all  this  touching  experience,  where  is  the  gravest 
blame  to  be  laid?  It  must,  no  doubt,  be  confessed  that 
among  the  conditions  of  college  life  there  are  some  which 
tend  to  encourage  in  a  young  man  a  certain  pertness  and 
priggishness  of  mind  which  make  the  old  ways  of  faith 
seem  old-fashioned  and  primitive.  Indeed,  it  seems  to 
some  young  men  that  any  way  of  faith  is  superfluous  to  a 
thorough  man  of  the  world,  such  as  the  average  sopho- 
more ought  to  be.  But  these  cheerful  young  persons, 
for  whom  the  past  has  no  lessons  and  the  future  no  visions, 
and  for  whom  the  new  ideal  of  self-culture  has  for  the  mo- 
ment suppressed  the  earlier  ideals  of  self-sacrifice  or  serv- 
ice, are  not  a  type  of  student  life  which  need  be  taken 
seriously.    They  are  the  lookers-on  of  the  academic  world, 


224  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

the  dilettante  and  amateur  minds  in  a  community  of 
scholars.  The  strenuous  game  of  real  learning  goes  on; 
and  these  patrons  of  the  strife  sit,  as  it  were,  along  the 
side  lines  and  wear  the  college  colors,  but  do  not  partici- 
pate in  the  training  or  the  conflict  or  the  victory.  We 
are  thinking  of  that  much  more  significant  body  of  youth 
who  are  in  deadly  earnest  with  their  thought,  and  who 
find  it  an  essential  of  their  intellectual  peace  to  attain 
some  sense  of  imity  in  their  conception  of  the  world. 
For  this  type  of  college  youth — the  most  conscientious, 
most  thoughtful,  most  precious — the  blame  for  incon- 
sistency between  the  new  learning  and  the  inherited  faith 
lies,  for  the  most  part,  not  with  the  college,  but  with  the 
church.  There  was  once  a  time  when  these  young  minds 
could  be  secluded  by  solicitous  parents  and  anxious  pastors 
from  most  of  the  signs  of  change  in  modern  thought.  They 
could  be  prohibited  from  approaching  great  tracts  of 
literature;  they  could  be  hidden  in  the  cloistered  life  of  a 
strictly  guarded  college;  their  learning  could  be  insured 
to  be  in  safe  conformity  with  a  predetermined  creed. 
There  is  now  no  comer  of  the  intellectual  world  where 
this  seclusion  is  possible.  Out  of  the  most  unexpected 
sources — a  novel,  a  poem,  a  newspaper — issues  the  con- 
tagion of  modem  thought;  and,  in  an  instant,  the  life 
that  has  been  shut  in  and  has  seemed  secure  is  hopelessly 
affected. 

And  how  does  the  young  man,  touched  with  the  modem 
spirit,  come  to  regard  the  faith  which  he  is  thus  forced  to 
reject?  Sometimes  he  regards  it  with  a  sense  of  pathos, 
as  an  early  love  soon  lost;  sometimes  with  a  deep  indigna- 
tion, as  the  source  of  scepticism  and  denial.  For  one 
educated  youth  who  is  alienated  from  religion  by  the  per- 
suasions of  science,  philosophy,  or  art,  ten,  we  may  be  sure, 


THE  RELIGION  OF  A  STUDENT  225 

are  thus  aflFected  by  the  irrational  or  impracticable  teach- 
ing of  religion.  It  is  not  an  inherent  issue  between  learn- 
ing and  faith  which  forces  them  out  of  the  church  in  which 
they  were  born;  it  is  an  imscientific  and  reactionary  theory 
of  faith.  It  is  not  the  college  which  must  renew  its  con- 
formity to  the  church;  it  is  the  church  which  must  open 
its  eyes  to  the  marvellous  expansion  of  intellectual  horizon 
which  lies  before  the  mind  of  every  college  student  to-day. 
There  is  another  aspect  of  the  same  experience.  This 
process  of  intellectual  growth  is  often  accompanied,  not 
by  a  reaction  from  religion,  but  by  a  new  appreciation  of 
its  reasonableness.  In  a  degree  which  few  who  represent 
the  church  have  as  yet  realized,  the  expansion  of  the 
sphere  of  truth  is  at  the  same  time  an  enlargement  and 
enrichment  of  religious  confidence.  There  is  going  on, 
within  the  college,  often  without  the  knowledge  of  the 
church,  a  restoration  of  religious  faith  through  the  influence 
of  intellectual  liberty.  I  have  seen  more  than  one  student 
come  to  college  in  a  mood  of  complete  antagonism  to  his 
earUer  faith,  and  then  I  have  seen  that  same  youth  in 
four  years  graduate  from  college,  and  with  a  passionate 
consecration  give  himself  to  the  calling  of  the  Christian 
ministry  which  he  had  so  lately  thought  superfluous  and 
outgrown.  It  was  the  simple  consequence  of  his  discovery 
that  the  religious  life  is  not  in  conflict  with  the  interests 
and  aims  of  a  university,  but  is  precisely  that  ideal  of  con- 
duct and  service  toward  which  the  spirit  of  a  university 
logically  leads.  "I  beseech  you,  brethren,"  says  the 
Apostle  who  knew  most  about  the  relation  of  philosophy 
to  faith,  "that  ye  present  ...  a  reasonable  service."  It 
is  a  charge  which  the  Christian  church  still  needs  to  hear. 
The  service  of  the  church  which  is  to  meet  the  religion  of 
a  college  student  must  be  a  reasonable  service,  consistent 


226  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

with  all  reverent  truth-seeking,  open  to  the  light,  hos- 
pitable to  progress,  rational,  teachable,  free.  The  church 
which  sets  itself  against  the  currents  of  reasonable  thought, 
and  has  for  great  words  like  evolution,  higher  criticism, 
morality,  beauty,  law,  only  an  undisceming  sneer,  is  in 
reality  not  the  defender  of  the  faith,  but  a  positive  con- 
tributor to  the  infidelity  of  the  present  age.  The  church 
which  asks  no  loyalty  that  is  not  rational,  no  service  of 
the  heart  that  is  not  an  ofifering  of  the  mind,  comes  with  its 
refreshing  message  to  many  a  bewUdered  young  mind,  and 
is  met  by  a  renewed  dedication  to  a  reasonable  service. 

So  far,  however,  I  have  described  the  religion  of  a  col- 
lege student  as  it  appears  in  every  thoughtful  age.  There 
remains  one  aspect  of  the  religious  life  which  is  peculiarly 
characteristic  of  a  college  student  in  our  own  generation, 
and  of  which  the  church  in  its  relation  to  the  young  must 
take  fresh  accoimt.  Protestant  teaching,  from  the  time 
of  Luther,  has  laid  special  emphasis  on  the  Pauline  dis- 
tinction between  faith  and  works.  It  is  not  a  man's  per- 
formance, either  of  moral  obligations  or  ritual  observances, 
that  justifies  him  in  the  sight  of  God.  He  must  offer 
that  total  consecration  of  the  heart,  that  conversion  of 
the  nature,  which  makes  him  find  his  life  in  God.  This 
teaching  was  a  necessary  protest  against  the  extemalism 
and  ecclesiastical  practises  which  had  been  for  centuries 
regarded  by  many  as  of  the  essence  of  the  religious  life. 
"We  are  justified  by  faith";  "the  just  shall  live  by  faith" 
— these  great  words  give  to  religion  a  profounder,  more 
spiritual,  and  more  personal  significance  as  a  relation  be- 
tween the  individual  soul  and  the  living  God. 

But  suppose  that  this  touch  of  the  life  of  God  is  felt  by 
the  soul  of  man,  and  that  the  soul  desires  to  express  its 
religious  life — what  is  to  be  its  channel  of  utterance? 


THE  RELIGION  OF  A  STUDENT  227 

The  history  of  Protestantism  for  the  most  part  answers: 
*'The  organ  of  religious  expression  is  the  tongue.  When 
the  life  is  moved  by  the  Holy  Ghost,  it  is  led  to  speak 
as  the  spirit  gives  it  utterance.  It  tells  rejoicingly  of  its 
new  birth;  it  confesses  Christ  before  its  fellows;  it  preaches 
to  others  the  message  which  has  brought  it  hope  and 
peace."  Here  is  the  basis  of  a  large  part  of  the  organiza- 
tion of  the  Protestant  churches — their  meetings  for  free 
expression  of  prayer;  their  association  for  religious  utter- 
ance; their  test  of  faith  through  spoken  confession.  It 
is  obvious  that  this  channel  of  expression  is  legitimate 
and  often  inevitable.  The  fulness  of  religious  emotion 
which  descends  from  God  to  man  leaps  out  of  many  lives 
into  forms  of  speech,  as  naturally  as  the  water  which  de- 
scends from  the  high  hills  leaps  out  from  its  conduit  into 
the  air. 

What  the  present  age,  however,  is  teaching  us,  as  the 
world  was  never  taught  before,  is  that  another  and  equally 
legitimate  channel  of  expression  is  open  to  the  life  of  faith. 
It  is  the  language  of  works.  We  have  come  in  these 
days  to  a  time  devoted  in  an  unprecedented  degree  to  the 
spirit  of  philanthropy.  It  is  the  age  of  social  service. 
No  life  can  yield  itself  to  the  current  of  the  time  without 
being  swept  into  its  movement  of  passionate  fraternity 
and  social  justice.  But  what  is  the  attitude  of  the  Chris- 
tian church  to  this  modern  phenomenon  of  social  service? 
It  is  quite  true  that  the  church  is  one  of  the  most  active 
agents  of  this  philanthropic  renaissance.  The  sense  of 
social  responsibility  is  manifested  by  the  prodigious  in- 
crease of  parish  charities,  parish  organizations,  institu- 
tional churches,  and  general  benevolence.  The  church, 
however,  has  failed  adequately  to  recognize  the  legitimate 
place  of  action  as  a  trustworthy  witness  of  faith.    To  do 


228  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

for  others  has  seemed  to  the  tradition  of  the  church  a 
superadded  and  secondary  effect  of  reUgion,  not  one  of 
its  essential  and  original  factors.  First,  one  is  to  be  re- 
ligious; and  then,  as  a  consequence  or  ornament  of  his 
religion,  he  is  to  concern  himself  with  the  better  ordering 
of  the  human  world. 

A  much  deeper  relation  between  faith  and  works  is  in- 
dicated by  those  solemn  words  in  which  Jesus  sums  up,  as 
he  says,  "the  whole  law  and  the  prophets."  There  is, 
he  teaches,  a  kinship  of  nature  between  the  love  of  God 
and  the  love  of  man.  The  second  commandment  is  like 
the  first.  Both  are  parts  of  a  complete  reUgion.  When 
a  modern  life,  that  is  to  say,  is  moved  by  the  spirit  of 
philanthropy,  that  impulse  is  not  something  which  the 
church  may  stand  apart  from  and  commend  as  of  another 
sphere.  It  is,  in  fact,  one  legitimate  expression  of  the 
religious  life;  uttering  itself  not  by  the  tongue,  but  by 
the  hand,  as  though  there  had  been  heard  the  great  word 
of  the  Apostle:  "If  a  man  love  not  his  brother  whom  he 
hath  seen,  how  can  he  love  God  whom  he  hath  not  seen?" 
In  other  words,  the  church  has  permitted  this  modern 
movement  of  philanthropy  to  proceed  as  though  it  were 
not  an  essential  part  of  the  Christian  life,  when  in  reality 
this  whole  vast  enterprise  is  the  way  in  which  the  modern 
world  is  actually  uttering  that  faith  in  the  possible  redemp- 
tion of  mankind,  to  accomplish  which  the  church  of  Jesus 
Christ  was  expressly  designed  and  inspired.  I  stood  one 
day  in  the  house  of  a  women's  settlement,  set  in  the  most 
squalid  conditions  of  the  life  of  a  city  and  purifying  the 
neighborhood  with  its  unassuming  devotion,  and  a  minister 
of  the  Christian  church  who  was  present  looked  about 
him  and  said:  "This  is  a  very  beautiful  and  noble  work, 
but  I  wish  there  were  more  of  Christ  in  it."    How  could 


THE  RELIGION  OF  A  STUDENT  229 

there,  one  felt  like  asking,  be  more  of  Christ  than  was 
already  there?  Would  technical  confession  or  oral  ex- 
pression add  any  significance  to  such  a  work  in  his  eyes 
who  said:  "Not  every  one  that  sayeth  to  me.  Lord,  Lord, 
but  he  that  doeth  the  will  of  my  Father"?  Was  there 
ever,  indeed,  a  work  more  full  of  Christ?  Might  not 
Jesus,  if  he  should  come  again  on  earth,  pass  without 
notice  many  a  splendid  structure  reared  in  his  name,  and, 
seeking  out  these  servants  of  the  broken-hearted  and  the 
bruised  of  the  world,  say  to  them:  ''Inasmuch  as  ye  have 
done  it  unto  one  of  these  least,  ye  have  done  it  unto  me"? 
Why  is  the  church  not  far-sighted  enough  to  claim  for 
herself  what  is  justly  her  own?  She  clings  to  the  test  of 
faith  by  a  single  form  of  expression,  when  in  fact  the  spirit 
of  God  is  manifesting  itself  at  the  present  time  by  another 
way  of  expression.  And  so  it  comes  to  pass  that  the  most 
immediate  problem  for  the  church  is  to  find  a  place  within 
her  religious  experience  for  the  new  manifestation  of  self- 
effacing  philanthropy,  and  to  claim  the  age  of  social 
service  as  at  heart  an  age  of  faith. 

Now,  at  precisely  this  point,  where  the  first  expression 
of  the  spirit  of  God  takes  the  form  of  the  service  of  man, 
the  Christian  church  meets  the  religion  of  the  college 
student.  The  normal  type  of  a  serious-minded  young 
man  at  the  present  time  does  not  talk  much  about  religion. 
Sometimes  this  reserve  proceeds  from  self-consciousness 
and  ought  to  be  overcome,  but  quite  as  often  it  proceeds 
from  modesty  and  ought  to  be  reverenced.  At  any  rate, 
such  is  the  college  student — a  person  disinclined  to  much 
profession  of  piety,  and  not  easy  to  shape  into  the  earlier 
type  of  expressed  discipleship.  Yet,  at  the  same  time,  this 
young  man  is  extraordinarily  responsive  to  the  new  call 
for  human  service.     I  suppose  that  never  in  the  history 


230  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

of  education  were  so  many  young  men  and  young  women 
in  our  colleges  profoundly  stirred  by  a  sense  of  social 
responsibility  and  a  passion  for  social  justice.  The  first 
serious  question  which  the  college  student  asks  is  not 
"Can  I  be  saved?  Do  I  beUeve?"  but  ''What  can  I  do 
for  others?  What  can  I  do  for  those  less  fortunate  than 
I  ?  "  No  one  can  live  in  a  community  of  these  young  lives 
without  perceiving  a  quality  of  self-sacrificing  altruism  so 
beautiful  and  so  eager  that  it  is  akin  to  the  emotions  which 
in  other  days  brought  in  a  revival  of  rehgion. 

What  is  the  duty  of  the  church  to  a  mood  like  this? 
The  duty  of  the  church — or  rather  the  privilege  of  the 
church — is  to  recognize  that  this  is  a  revival  of  religion; 
that  in  this  generous  movement  of  human  sympathy 
there  is  a  legitimate  and  acceptable  witness  of  the  life  of 
God  in  the  soul  of  the  modern  world.  It  may  not  be  that 
form  of  evidence  which  other  times  have  regarded  as  valid; 
it  may,  perhaps,  not  be  the  most  direct  way  of  religious 
expression;  but  none  the  less  it  happens  to  be  the  way 
through  which  the  Holy  Spirit  is  at  the  present  time  di- 
recting the  emotional  life  of  youth  to  natural  utterance. 
"I  am  not  very  religious,"  said  one  frank  youth  to  me  one 
day,  ''but  I  should  like  to  do  a  httle  to  make  of  Harvard 
College  something  more  than  a  winter  watering-place." 
But  was  not  that  youth  religious?  Was  it  not  the  spirit 
of  God  which  was  stirring  his  young  heart?  What,  in- 
deed, is  the  final  object  of  religion  if  it  is  not  to  include 
the  making  of  that  better  world  which  he  in  his  dream 
desired  to  see?  In  this  quality  of  the  religion  of  a  college 
student  the  church  must  believe.  It  must  take  him  as  he 
is,  and  let  him  testify  by  conduct  if  he  will  not  testify  by 
words.  If  the  student  might  be  assured  that  the  religion 
which  the  church  represents  is  a  practical,  working,  min- 


THE  RELIGION  OF  A  STUDENT  231 

istering  faith;  if  he  could  see  that  the  mission  of  the  church 
was  not  the  saving  of  a  few  fortunate  souls  from  a  wrecked 
and  drifting  world,  but  the  bringing  of  the  world  itself, 
like  a  still  seaworthy  vessel,  with  its  whole  cargo  of  hopes 
and  fears,  safe  to  its  port;  if  he  could  believe  that  in  the 
summons  of  the  time  to  unselfish  service  he  was  in  reality 
hearing  the  call  of  the  living  God;  then  he  would  see 
in  the  church  not,  as  he  is  often  inclined  to  see,  an  ob- 
stinate defender  of  impossible  opinions,  or  a  hothouse 
for  exotic  piety,  or  a  cold-storage  warehouse  to  preserve 
traditions  which  would  perish  in  the  open  air,  but  the 
natural  expression  of  organized  righteousness,  the  body  of 
those  who  are  sanctified  for  others'  sakes,  and  to  such  a 
church  he  would  offer  his  honest  and  practical  loyalty. 

These  are  the  tests  to  which  the  church  must  submit 
if  it  would  meet  the  religion  of  a  college  student — the 
tests  of  reality,  reasonableness,  and  practical  service.  A 
religion  without  reality — formal,  external,  technical,  ob- 
scurantist; a  religion  without  reasonableness — omniscient, 
dogmatic,  timid;  a  religion  which  does  not  greet  the  spirit 
of  practical  service  as  the  spirit  of  Christ — a  religion  of 
such  a  kind  may  win  the  loyalty  of  emotional  or  theolog- 
ical or  ecclesiastical  minds,  but  it  is  not  acceptable  to  the 
normal  type  of  educated  American  youth.  Such  natures 
demand  first  a  genuine,  then  a  rational,  and  then  a  prac- 
tical religion,  and  they  are  held  to  the  Christian  church 
by  no  bond  of  sentiment  or  tradition  which  will  prevent 
their  seeking  a  more  religious  life  elsewhere.  And  what 
is  this  but  a  wholesome  challenge  to  the  church  of  Christ 
to  renew  its  vitality  at  the  sources  of  its  real  power  ?  The 
intellectual  issues  of  the  present  time  are  too  real  to  be 
met  by  artificiahty  and  too  rational  to  be  interpreted  by 
traditionalism;  the  practical  philanthropy  of  the  present 


232  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

time  is  too  absorbing  and  persuasive  to  be  subordinated 
or  ignored.  It  is  a  time  for  the  church  to  dismiss  all 
affectations  and  all  assumptions  of  authority,  and  to  give 
itself  to  the  reality  of  rational  religion  and  to  the  practical 
redemption  of  an  unsanctified  world.  This  return  to  sim- 
plicity and  service  will  be  at  the  same  time  a  recognition 
of  the  religion  of  a  college  student  and  a  renewal  of  the  re- 
ligion of  Jesus  Christ. 


XVI 

INAUGURAL  ADDRESS^ 

ALEXANDER  MEIKLEJOHN 

In  the  discussions  concerning  college  education  there  is 
one  voice  which  is  all  too  seldom  raised  and  all  too  often 
disregarded.  It  is  the  voice  of  the  teacher  and  the  scholar, 
of  the  member  of  the  college  faculty.  It  is  my  purpose 
to  devote  this  address  to  a  consideration  of  the  ideals  of 
the  teacher,  of  the  problems  of  instruction  as  they  present 
themselves  to  the  men  who  are  giving  the  instruction. 
And  I  do  this  not  because  I  believe  that  just  now  the 
teachers  are  wiser  than  others  who  are  dealing  with  the 
same  questions,  but  rather  as  an  expression  of  a  definite 
conviction  with  regard  to  the  place  of  the  teacher  in  our 
educational  scheme.  It  is,  I  believe,  the  function  of  the 
teacher  to  stand  before  his  pupils  and  before  the  commu- 
nity at  large  as  the  intellectual  leader  of  his  time.  If  he 
is  not  able  to  take  this  leadership,  he  is  not  worthy  of 
his  calling.  If  the  leadership  is  taken  from  him  and  given 
to  others,  then  the  very  foundations  of  the  scheme  of  in- 
struction are  shaken.  He  who  in  matters  of  teaching  must 
be  led  by  others  is  not  the  one  to  lead  the  imitative  under- 
graduate, not  the  one  to  inspire  the  confidence  and  loy- 
alty and  discipleship  on  which  all  true  teaching  depends. 
If  there  are  others  who  can  do  these  things  better  than 
the  college  teacher  of  to-day,  then  we  must  bring  them 

'  Reprinted  through  the  courtesy  of  Alexander  Meiklejohn  and  of  The 
Amherst  Graduates'  Quarterly. 

233 


234  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

within  the  college  walls.  But  if  the  teacher  is  to  be  deemed 
worthy  of  his  task,  then  he  must  be  recognized  as  the 
teacher  of  us  all,  and  we  must  listen  to  his  words  as  he 
speaks  of  the  matters  intrusted  to  his  charge. 

In  the  consideration  of  the  educational  creed  of  the 
teacher  I  will  try  to  give,  first,  a  brief  statement  of  his 
belief;  second,  a  defense  of  it  against  other  views  of  the 
function  of  the  college;  third,  an  interpretation  of  its 
meaning  and  significance;  fourth,  a  criticism  of  what  seem 
to  me  misunderstandings  of  their  own  meaning  prevalent 
among  the  teachers  of  our  day;  and,  finally,  a  suggestion 
of  certain  changes  in  policy  which  must  follow  if  the  be- 
lief of  the  teacher  is  clearly  understood  and  applied  in 
our  educational  procedure. 


First,  then.  What  do  our  teachers  believe  to  be  the  aim 
of  college  instruction?  Wherever  their  opinions  and  con- 
victions find  expression  there  is  one  contention  which  is 
always  in  the  foreground,  namely,  that  to  be  liberal  a  col- 
lege must  be  essentially  intellectual.  It  is  a  place,  the 
teachers  tell  us,  in  which  a  boy,  forgetting  all  things  else, 
may  set  forth  on  the  enterprise  of  learning.  It  is  a  time 
when  a  young  man  may  come  to  awareness  of  the  think- 
ing of  his  people,  may  perceive  what  knowledge  is  and 
has  been  and  is  to  be.  Whatever  light-hearted  under- 
graduates may  say,  whatever  the  opinions  of  solicitous  par- 
ents, of  ambitious  friends,  of  employers  in  search  of  work- 
men, of  leaders  in  church  or  state  or  business, — whatever 
may  be  the  beliefs  and  desires  and  demands  of  outsiders, 
— the  teacher  within  the  college,  knowing  his  mission  as 
no  one  else  can  know  it,  proclaims  that  mission  to  be  the 


INAUGURAL  ADDRESS  235 

leading  of  his  pupil  into  the  life  intellectual.  The  college 
is  primarily  not  a  place  of  the  body,  nor  of  the  feelings, 
nor  even  of  the  will;  it  is,  first  of  all,  a  place  of  the  mind. 


n 

Against  this  intellectual  interpretation  of  the  college  our 
teachers  find  two  sets  of  hostile  forces  constantly  at  work. 
Outside  the  walls  there  are  the  practical  demands  of  a 
busy  commercial  and  social  scheme;  within  the  college 
there  are  the  trivial  and  sentimental  and  irrational  mis- 
understandings of  its  own  friends.  Upon  each  of  these 
our  college  teachers  are  wont  to  descend  as  Samson  upon 
the  Philistines,  and  when  they  have  had  their  will,  there 
is  little  left  for  another  to  accomplish. 

As  against  the  immediate  practical  demands  from  with- 
out, the  issue  is  clear  and  decisive.  College  teachers  know 
that  the  world  must  have  trained  workmen,  skilled  opera- 
tives, clever  buyers  and  sellers,  efficient  directors,  resource- 
ful manufacturers,  able  lawyers,  ministers,  physicians,  and 
teachers.  But  it  is  equally  true  that,  in  order  to  do  its 
own  work,  the  liberal  college  must  leave  the  special  and 
technical  training  for  these  trades  and  professions  to  be 
done  in  other  schools  and  by  other  methods.  In  a  word, 
the  liberal  college  does  not  pretend  to  give  all  the  kinds 
of  teaching  which  a  young  man  of  college  age  may  prof- 
itably receive;  it  does  not  even  claim  to  give  all  the  kinds 
of  intellectual  training  which  are  worth  giving.  It  is  com- 
mitted to  intellectual  training  of  the  liberal  t3^e,  what- 
ever that  may  mean,  and  to  that  mission  it  must  be  faith- 
ful. One  may  safely  say,  then,  on  behalf  of  our  college 
teachers,  that  their  instruction  is  intended  to  be  radically 
different  from  that  given  in  the  technical  school  or  even 


236  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

in  the  professional  school.  Both  these  institutions  are 
practical  in  a  sense  which  the  college,  as  an  intellectual 
institution,  is  not.  In  the  technical  school  the  pupil  is 
taught  how  to  do  some  one  of  the  mechanical  operations 
which  contribute  to  human  welfare.  He  is  trained  to 
print,  to  weave,  to  farm,  to  build;  and  for  the  most  part 
he  is  trained  to  do  these  things  by  practise  rather  than 
by  theory.  His  possession  when  he  leaves  the  school  is 
not  a  stock  of  ideas,  of  scientific  principles,  but  a  measure 
of  skill,  a  collection  of  rules  of  thumb.  His  primary  func- 
tion as  a  tradesman  is  not  to  understand  but  to  do,  and 
in  doing  what  is  needed  he  is  following  directions  which 
have  first  been  thought  out  by  others  and  are  now  prac- 
tised by  him.  The  technical  school  intends  to  furnish 
training  which,  in  the  sense  in  which  we  use  the  term,  is 
not  intellectual  but  practical. 

In  a  corresponding  way  the  work  of  the  professional 
school  differs  from  that  of  the  Uberal  college.  In  the  teach- 
ing of  engineering,  medicine,  or  law  we  are  or  may  be 
beyond  the  realm  of  mere  skill  and  within  the  realm  of 
ideas  and  principles.  But  the  selection  and  the  relating 
of  these  ideas  is  dominated  by  an  immediate  practical  in- 
terest which  cuts  them  off  from  the  intellectual  point  of 
view  of  the  scholar.  If  an  undergraduate  should  take 
away  from  his  studies  of  chemistry,  biology,  and  psychol- 
ogy only  those  parts  which  have  immediate  practical  ap- 
plication in  the  field  of  medicine,  the  college  teachers  would 
feel  that  they  had  failed  to  give  to  the  boy  the  kind  of 
instruction  demanded  of  a  college.  It  is  not  their  purpose 
to  furnish  applied  knowledge  in  this  sense.  They  are  not 
willing  to  cut  up  their  sciences  into  segments  and  to  allow 
the  student  to  select  those  segments  which  may  be  of  serv- 
ice in  the  practise  of  an  art  or  a  profession.     In  one  way 


INAUGURAL  ADDRESS  237 

or  another  the  teacher  feels  a  kinship  with  the  scientist 
and  the  scholar  which  forbids  him  to  submit  to  this  dom- 
ination of  his  instruction  by  the  demands  of  an  immedi- 
ate practical  interest.  Whatever  it  may  mean,  he  intends 
to  hold  the  intellectual  point  of  view  and  to  keep  his  stu- 
dents with  him  if  he  can.  In  response,  then,  to  demands 
for  technical  and  professional  training  our  college  teachers 
tell  us  that  such  training  may  be  obtained  in  other  schools; 
it  is  not  to  be  had  in  a  college  of  liberal  culture. 

In  the  conflict  with  the  forces  within  the  college  our 
teachers  find  themselves  fighting  essentially  the  same  bat- 
tle as  against  the  foes  without.  In  a  hundred  different 
ways  the  friends  of  the  college — students,  graduates,  trus- 
tees, and  even  colleagues: — seem  to  them  so  to  misunder- 
stand its  mission  as  to  minimize  or  to  falsify  its  intellec- 
tual ideals.  The  college  is  a  good  place  for  making  friends; 
it  gives  excellent  experience  in  getting  on  with  men;  it  has 
exceptional  advantages  as  an  athletic  club;  it  is  a  rela- 
tively safe  place  for  a  boy  when  he  first  leaves  home;  on 
the  whole  it  may  improve  a  student's  manners;  it  gives 
acquaintance  with  lofty  ideals  of  character,  preaches  the 
doctrine  of  social  service,  exalts  the  virtues  and  duties  of 
citizenship.  All  these  conceptions  seem  to  the  teacher  to 
hide  or  to  obscure  the  fact  that  the  college  is  fundamen- 
tally a  place  of  the  mind,  a  time  for  thinking,  an  oppor- 
tunity for  knowing.  And  perhaps  in  proportion  to  their 
own  loftiness  of  purpose  and  motive  they  are  the  more 
dangerous  as  tending  all  the  more  powerfully  to  replace 
or  to  nullify  the  underlying  principle  upon  which  they  all 
depend.  Here  again,  when  misconception  clears  away,  one 
can  have  no  doubt  that  the  battle  of  the  teacher  is  a  right- 
eous one.  It  is  well  that  a  boy  should  have  four  good 
years  of  athletic  sport,  playing  his  own  games  and  watch- 


238  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

ing  the  games  of  his  fellows;  it  is  well  that  his  manners 
should  be  improved;  it  is  worth  while  to  make  good 
friends;  it  is  very  desirable  to  develop  the  power  of  un- 
derstanding and  working  with  other  men;  it  is  surely- 
good  to  grow  in  strength  and  purity  of  character,  in  de- 
votion to  the  interests  of  society,  in  readiness  to  meet  the 
obligations  and  opportunities  of  citizenship.  If  any  one  of 
these  be  lacking  from  the  fruits  of  a  college  course  we  may 
well  complain  of  the  harvest.  And  yet  is  it  not  true  that 
by  sheer  pressure  of  these,  by  the  driving  and  pulling  of 
the  social  forces  within  and  without  the  college,  the  mind 
of  the  student  is  constantly  torn  from  its  chief  concern? 
Do  not  our  social  and  practical  interests  distract  our  boys 
from  the  intellectual  achievements  which  should  dominate 
their  imagination  and  command  their  zeal  ?  I  believe  that 
one  may  take  it  as  the  deUberate  judgment  of  the  teachers 
of  our  colleges  to-day  that  the  function  of  the  college  is 
constantly  misimderstood,  and  that  it  is  subjected  to  de- 
mands which,  however  friendly  in  intent,  are  yet  destruc- 
tive of  its  intellectual  efficiency  and  success. 

m 

But  now  that  the  contention  of  the  teacher  has  been 
stated  and  reaffirmed  against  objections,  it  is  time  to  ask: 
What  does  it  mean?  And  how  can  it  be  justified?  By 
what  might  does  a  company  of  scholars  invite  yoxmg  men 
to  spend  with  them  four  years  of  discipleship  ?  Do  they, 
in  their  insistence  upon  the  intellectual  quality  of  their 
ideal,  intend  to  give  an  education  which  is  avowedly  un- 
practical? If  so,  how  shall  they  justify  their  invitation, 
which  may  perhaps  divert  young  men  from  other  interests 
and  other  companionships  which  are  valuable  to  them- 


INAUGURAL  ADDRESS  239 

selves  and  to  their  fellows  ?  In  a  word,  what  is  the  under- 
lying motive  of  the  teacher,  what  is  there  in  the  intellec- 
tual interests  and  activities  which  seems  to  him  to  warrant 
their  domination  over  the  training  and  instruction  of 
young  men  during  the  college  years? 

It  is  no  fair  answer  to  this  question  to  summon  us  to 
faith  in  intellectual  ideals,  to  demand  of  us  that  we  live 
the  Ufe  of  the  mind  with  confidence  in  the  virtues  of  in- 
telligence, that  we  love  knowledge  and  because  of  our 
passion  follow  after  it.  Most  of  us  are  already  eager  to 
accept  intellectual  ideals,  but  our  very  devotion  to  them 
forbids  that  we  accept  them  blindly.  I  have  often  been 
struck  by  the  inner  contradictoriness  of  the  demand  that 
we  have  faith  in  intelligence.  It  seems  to  mean,  as  it  is 
so  commonly  made  to  mean,  that  we  must  unintelligently 
follow  intelligence,  that  we  must  ignorantly  pursue  knowl- 
edge, that  we  must  question  everything  except  the  busi- 
ness of  asking  questions,  that  we  think  about  everything 
except  the  use  of  thinking  itself.  As  Mr.  F.  H.  Bradley 
would  say,  the  dictum,  "Have  faith  in  intelligence,"  is  so 
true  that  it  constantly  threatens  to  become  false.  Our 
very  conviction  of  its  truth  compels  us  to  scrutinize  and 
test  it  to  the  end. 

How,  then,  shall  we  justify  the  faith  of  the  teacher? 
What  reason  can  we  give  for  our  exaltation  of  intellectual 
training  and  activity?  To  this  question  two  answers  are 
possible.  First,  knowledge  and  thinking  are  good  in  them- 
selves. Secondly,  they  help  us  in  the  attainment  of  other 
values  in  life  which  without  them  would  be  impossible. 
Both  these  answers  may  be  given  and  are  given  by  col- 
lege teachers.  Within  them  must  be  found  whatever  can 
be  said  by  way  of  explanation  and  justification  of  the 
work  of  the  liberal  college. 


240  COLLEGE  AND   THE  FUTURE 

The  first  answer  receives  just  now  far  less  of  recogni- 
tion than  it  can  rightly  claim.  When  the  man  of  the 
world  is  told  that  a  boy  is  to  be  trained  in  thinking  just 
because  of  the  joys  and  satisfactions  of  thinking  itself,  just 
in  order  that  he  may  go  on  thinking  as  long  as  he  lives, 
the  man  of  the  world  has  been  heard  to  scoff  and  to  ridi- 
cule the  idle  dreaming  of  scholarly  men.  But  if  thinking 
is  not  a  good  thing  in  itself,  if  intellectual  activity  is  not 
worth  while  for  its  own  sake,  will  the  man  of  the  world 
tell  us  what  is?  There  are  those  among  us  who  find  so 
much  satisfaction  in  the  countless  trivial  and  vulgar  amuse- 
ments of  a  crude  people  that  they  have  no  time  for  the 
joys  of  the  mind.  There  are  those  who  are  so  closely 
shut  up  within  a  Httle  round  of  petty  pleasures  that  they 
have  never  dreamed  of  the  fun  of  reading  and  conversing 
and  investigating  and  reflecting.  And  of  these  one  can 
only  say  that  the  difference  is  one  of  taste,  and  that  their 
tastes  seem  to  be  relatively  dull  and  stupid.  Surely  it  is 
one  function  of  the  liberal  college  to  save  boys  from  that 
stupidity,  to  give  them  an  appetite  for  the  pleasures  of 
thinking,  to  make  them  sensitive  to  the  joys  of  apprecia- 
tion and  understanding,  to  show  them  how  sweet  and 
captivating  and  wholesome  are  the  games  of  the  mind. 
At  the  time  when  the  play  element  is  still  dominant  it  is 
worth  while  to  acquaint  boys  with  the  sport  of  facing  and 
solving  problems.  Apart  from  some  of  the  experiences  of 
friendship  and  sympathy,  I  doubt  if  there  are  any  human 
interests  so  permanently  satisfying,  so  fine  and  splendid 
in  themselves,  as  are  those  of  intellectual  activity.  To  give 
our  boys  that  zest,  that  delight  in  things  intellectual,  to 
give  them  an  appreciation  of  a  kind  of  life  which  is  well 
worth  living,  to  make  them  men  of  intellectual  culture — 
that  certainly  is  one  part  of  the  work  of  any  liberal 
college. 


INAUGURAL  ADDRESS  241 

On  the  other  hand,  the  creation  of  culture  as  so  defined 
can  never  constitute  the  full  achievement  of  the  college. 
It  is  essential  to  awaken  the  impulses  of  inquiry,  of  ex- 
periment, of  investigation,  of  reflection,  the  instinctive 
cravings  of  the  mind.  But  no  liberal  college  can  be  con- 
tent with  this.  The  impulse  to  thinking  must  be  ques- 
tioned and  rationalized  as  must  every  other  instinctive 
response.  It  is  well  to  think,  but  what  shall  we  think 
about?  Are  there  any  lines  of  investigation  and  reflec- 
tion more  valuable  than  others,  and,  if  so,  how  is  their 
value  to  be  tested?  Or  again,  if  the  impulse  for  think- 
ing comes  into  conflict  with  other  desires  and  cravings, 
how  is  the  opposition  to  be  solved?  It  has  sometimes 
been  suggested  that  our  man  of  intellectual  culture  may 
be  found,  like  Nero,  fiddling  with  words  while  all  the  world 
about  him  is  aflame.  And  the  point  of  the  suggestion  is 
not  that  fiddling  is  a  bad  and  worthless  pastime,  but 
rather  that  it  is  inopportune  on  such  an  occasion,  that 
the  man  who  does  it  is  out  of  touch  with  his  situation, 
that  his  fiddling  does  not  fit  his  facts.  In  a  word,  men 
know  with  regard  to  thinking,  as  with  regard  to  every 
other  content  of  human  experience,  that  it  cannot  be  val- 
ued merely  in  terms  of  itself.  It  must  be  measured  in 
terms  of  its  relation  to  other  contents  and  to  human  ex- 
perience as  a  whole.  Thinking  is  good  in  itself, — but  what 
does  it  cost  of  other  things;  what  does  it  bring  of  other 
values?  Place  it  amid  all  the  varied  contents  of  our  in- 
dividual and  social  experience,  measure  it  in  terms  of 
what  it  implies,  fix  it  by  means  of  its  relations,  and  then 
you  will  know  its  worth  not  simply  in  itself  but  in  that 
deeper  sense  which  comes  when  human  desires  are  ration- 
alized and  human  lives  are  known  in  their  entirety,  as 
well  as  they  can  be  known  by  those  who  are  engaged  in 
living  them. 


242  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

Li  this  consideration  we  find  the  second  answer  of  the 
teacher  to  the  demand  for  justification  of  the  work  of  the 
college.  Knowledge  is  good,  he  tells  us,  not  only  in  itself, 
but  in  its  enrichment  and  enhancement  of  the  other  values 
of  our  experience.  In  the  deepest  and  fullest  sense  of  the 
words,  knowledge  pays.  This  statement  rests  upon  the 
classification  of  hvmian  actions  into  two  groups,  those  of 
the  instinctive  type  and  those  of  the  intellectual  t3^e. 
By  far  the  greater  part  of  our  human  acts  are  carried  on 
without  any  clear  idea  of  what  we  are  going  to  do  or  how 
we  are  going  to  do  it.  For  the  most  part  our  responses 
to  our  situations  are  the  immediate  responses  of  feeling, 
of  perception,  of  custom,  of  tradition.  But  slowly  and 
painfully,  as  the  mind  has  developed,  action  after  action 
has  been  translated  from  the  feeUng  to  the  ideational  type; 
in  wider  and  wider  fields  men  have  become  aware  of  their 
own  modes  of  action,  more  and  more  they  have  come  to 
understanding,  to  knowledge  of  themselves  and  of  their 
needs.  And  the  principle  imderlying  all  our  educational 
procedure  is  that,  on  the  whole,  actions  become  more  suc- 
cessful as  they  pass  from  the  sphere  of  feeling  to  that  of 
understanding.  Our  educational  belief  is  that  in  the  long 
run,  if  men  know  what  they  are  going  to  do  and  how  they 
are  going  to  do  it,  and  what  is  the  nature  of  the  situation 
with  which  they  are  dealing,  their  response  to  that  situa- 
tion will  be  better  adjusted  and  more  beneficial  than  are 
the  responses  of  the  feehng  type  in  like  situations. 

It  is  all  too  obvious  that  there  are  limits  to  the  va- 
lidity of  this  principle.  If  men  are  to  investigate,  to  con- 
sider, to  decide,  then  action  must  be  delayed  and  we  must 
pay  the  penalty  of  waiting.  If  men  are  to  endeavor  to 
understand  and  know  their  situations,  then  we  must  be 
prepared  to  see  them  make  mistakes  in  their  thinking,  lose 


INAUGURAL  ADDRESS  243 

their  certainty  of  touch,  wander  off  into  pitfalls  and  illu- 
sions and  fallacies  of  thought,  and  in  consequence  secure 
for  the  time  results  far  lower  in  value  than  those  of  the 
instinctive  response  which  they  seek  to  replace.  The  de- 
lays and  mistakes  and  uncertainties  of  our  thinking  are  a 
heavy  price  to  pay,  but  it  is  the  conviction  of  the  teacher 
that  the  price  is  as  nothing  when  compared  with  the  goods 
which  it  buys.  You  may  point  out  to  him  the  loss  when 
old  methods  of  procedure  give  way  before  the  criticism  of 
understanding,  you  may  remind  him  of  the  pain  and  suf- 
fering when  old  habits  of  thought  and  action  are  replaced, 
you  may  reprove  him  for  all  the  blunders  of  the  past;  but 
in  spite  of  it  all  he  knows,  and  you  know,  that  in  human 
lives  taken  separately  and  in  human  life  as  a  whole  men's 
greatest  lack  is  the  lack  of  understanding,  their  greatest 
hope  to  know  themselves  and  the  world  in  which  they 
live. 

Within  the  limits  of  this  general  educational  principle 
the  place  of  the  Uberal  college  may  easily  be  fixed.  In 
the  technical  school  pupils  are  prepared  for  a  specific  work 
and  are  kept  for  the  most  part  on  the  plane  of  perceptual 
action,  doing  work  which  others  understand.  In  the  pro- 
fessional school,  students  are  properly  within  the  realm  of 
ideas  and  principles,  but  they  are  still  hmited  to  a  specific 
human  interest  with  which  alone  their  understanding  is 
concerned.  But  the  college  is  called  liberal  as  against 
both  of  these  because  the  instruction  is  dominated  by  no 
special  interest,  is  limited  to  no  single  human  task,  but  is 
intended  to  take  human  activity  as  a  whole,  to  under- 
stand human  endeavors  not  in  their  isolation  but  in  their 
relations  to  one  another  and  to  the  total  experience  which 
we  call  the  life  of  our  people.  And  just  as  we  believe 
that  the  building  of  ships  has  become  more  successful  as 


244  COLLEGE  AND   THE  FUTURE 

men  have  come  to  a  knowledge  of  the  principles  involved 
in  their  construction;  just  as  the  practise  of  medicine  has 
become  more  successful  as  we  have  come  to  a  knowledge 
of  the  human  body,  of  the  conditions  within  it  and  the 
influences  without; — just  so  the  teacher  in  the  liberal  col- 
lege believes  that  Ufe  as  a  total  enterprise,  life  as  it  pre- 
sents itself  to  each  one  of  us  in  his  career  as  an  individual, 
— human  living, — will  be  more  successful  in  so  far  as  men 
come  to  understand  it  and  to  know  it  as  they  attempt  to 
carry  it  on.  To  give  boys  an  intellectual  grasp  on  human 
experience — this  it  seems  to  me  is  the  teacher's  concep- 
tion of  the  chief  function  of  the  Uberal  college. 

May  I  call  attention  to  the  fact  that  this  second  answer 
of  the  teacher  defines  the  aim  of  the  college  as  avowedly 
and  frankly  practical  ?  Knowledge  is  to  be  sought  chiefly 
for  the  sake  of  its  contribution  to  the  other  activities  of 
human  Uving.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  as  definitely 
declared  that  in  method  the  college  is  fully  and  unreserv- 
edly intellectual.  If  we  can  see  that  these  two  demands 
are  not  in  conflict,  but  that  they  stand  together  in  the 
harmonious  relation  of  means  and  ends,  of  instrument  and 
achievement,  of  method  and  result,  we  may  escape  many 
a  needless  conflict  and  keep  our  educational  policy  in  sin- 
gleness of  aim  and  action.  To  do  this  we  must  show  that 
the  college  is  intellectual,  not  as  opposed  to  practical  inter- 
ests and  purposes,  but  as  opposed  to  unpractical  and  un- 
wise methods  of  work.  The  issue  is  not  between  practical 
and  intellectual  aims  but  between  the  immediate  and  the 
remote  aim,  between  the  hasty  and  the  measured  proce- 
dure, between  the  demand  for  results  at  once  and  the 
willingness  to  wait  for  the  best  results.  The  intellectual 
road  to  success  is  longer  and  more  roundabout  than  any 
other,  but  they  who  are  strong  and  willing  for  the  climb- 


INAUGURAL  ADDRESS  245 

ing  are  brought  to  higher  levels  of  achievement  than  they 
could  possibly  have  attained  had  they  gone  straight  forward 
in  the  pathway  of  quick  returns.  If  this  were  not  true  the 
liberal  college  would  have  no  proper  place  in  our  life  at 
all.  In  so  far  as  it  is  true  the  college  has  a  right  to  claim 
the  best  of  our  young  men  to  give  them  its  preparation 
for  the  living  they  are  to  do. 

IV 

But  now  that  we  have  attempted  to  interpret  the  in- 
tellectual mission  of  the  college,  it  may  be  fair  to  ask: 
"Are  the  teachers  and  scholars  of  our  day  always  faithful 
to  that  mission?  Do  their  statements  and  their  practise 
always  ring  in  accord  with  the  principle  which  has  been 
stated?"  It  seems  to  me  that  at  two  points  they  are 
constantly  off  the  key,  constantly  at  variance  with  the 
reasons  by  which  alone  their  teaching  can  be  justified. 

In  the  first  place,  it  often  appears  as  if  our  teachers  and 
scholars  were  dehberately  in  league  to  mystify  and  befog 
the  popular  mind  regarding  this  practical  value  of  intel- 
lectual work.  They  seem  not  to  wish  too  much  said  about 
the  results  and  benefits.  Their  desire  is  to  keep  aloft  the 
intellectual  banner,  to  proclaim  the  intellectual  gospel,  to 
demand  of  student  and  public  alike  adherence  to  the  faith. 
And  in  general  when  they  are  questioned  as  to  results 
they  give  little  satisfaction  except  to  those  who  are  al- 
ready pledged  to  unwavering  confidence  in  their  ipse  dixits. 
And  largely  as  a  result  of  this  attitude  the  American 
people  seem  to  me  to  have  Uttle  understanding  of  the  in- 
tellectual work  of  the  college.  Our  citizens  and  patrons 
can  see  the  value  of  games  and  physical  exercises;  they 
readily  perceive  the  importance  of  the  social  give  and  take 


246  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

of  a  college  democracy;  they  can  appreciate  the  value  of 
studies  which  prepare  a  young  man  for  his  profession  and 
so  anticipate  or  replace  the  professional  school;  they  can 
even  believe  that  if  a  boy  is  kept  at  some  sort  of  thinking 
for  four  years  his  mind  may  become  more  acute,  more  sys- 
tematic, more  accurate,  and  hence  more  useful  than  it  was 
before.  But  as  for  the  content  of  a  college  course,  as  for 
the  value  of  knowledge,  what  a  boy  gains  by  knowing 
Greek  or  economics,  philosophy  or  Hterature,  history  or 
biology,  except  as  they  are  regarded  as  having  professional 
usefulness,  I  think  our  friends  are  in  the  dark  and  are 
likely  to  remain  so  until  we  turn  on  the  light.  When  our 
teachers  say,  as  they  sometimes  do  say,  that  the  effect  of 
knowledge  upon  the  character  and  life  of  the  student  must 
always  be  for  the  college  an  accident,  a  circumstance  which 
has  no  essential  connection  with  its  real  aim  or  function, 
then  it  seems  to  me  that  our  educational  policy  is  wholly 
out  of  joint.  If  there  be  no  essential  connection  between 
instruction  and  life,  then  there  is  no  reason  for  giving  in- 
.struction  except  in  so  far  as  it  is  pleasant  in  itself,  and  we 
have  no  educational  policy  at  all.  As  against  this  hesi- 
tancy, this  absence  of  a  conviction,  we  men  of  the  col- 
lege should  declare  in  clear  and  unmistakable  terms  our 
creed — the  creed  that  knowledge  is  justified  by  its  results. 
We  should  say  to  our  people  so  plainly  that  they  cannot 
misunderstand:  "Give  us  your  boys,  give  us  the  means 
we  need,  and  we  will  so  train  and  inform  the  minds  of 
those  boys  that  their  own  lives  and  the  lives  of  the  men 
about  them  shall  be  more  successful  than  they  could  be 
without  our  training.  Give  us  our  chance  and  we  will 
show  your  boys  what  human  living  is,  for  we  are  convinced 
that  they  can  live  better  in  knowledge  than  they  can  in 
ignorance." 


INAUGURAL  ADDRESS  247 

There  is  a  second  wandering  from  the  faith  which  is  so 
common  among  investigators  that  it  may  fairly  be  called 
the  "fallacy  of  the  scholar."  It  is  the  belief  that  all  knowl- 
edge is  so  good  that  all  parts  of  knowledge  are  equally 
good.  Ask  many  of  our  scholars  and  teachers  what  sub- 
jects a  boy  should  study  in  order  that  he  may  gain  insight 
for  human  hving,  and  they  will  say:  "It  makes  no  differ- 
ence in  what  department  of  knowledge  he  studies;  let 
him  go  into  Sanscrit  or  bacteriology,  into  mathematics  or 
history;  if  only  he  goes  where  men  are  actually  dealing 
with  intellectual  problems,  and  if  only  he  learns  how  to 
deal  with  problems  himself,  the  aim  of  education  is  achieved, 
he  has  entered  into  intellectual  activity."  This  point  of 
view,  running  through  all  the  varieties  of  the  elective  sys- 
tem, seems  to  me  hopelessly  at  variance  with  any  sound 
educational  doctrine.  It  represents  the  scholar  of  the  day 
at  his  worst  both  as  a  thinker  and  as  a  teacher.  In  so 
far  as  it  dominates  a  group  of  college  teachers  it  seems  to 
me  to  render  them  unfit  to  determine  and  to  administer  a 
college  curriculum.  It  is  an  announcement  that  they  have 
no  guiding  principles  in  their  educational  practise,  no  prin- 
ciples of  selection  in  their  arrangement  of  studies,  no  gen- 
uine grasp  on  the  relationship  between  knowledge  and  life. 
It  is  the  concerted  statement  of  a  group  of  men  each  of 
whom  is  lost  within  the  limits  of  his  own  special  studies, 
and  who  as  a  group  seem  not  to  realize  the  organic  re- 
lationships between  them  nor  the  common  task  which 
should  bind  them  together. 

In  bringing  this  second  criticism  against  our  scholars  I 
am  not  urging  that  the  principle  of  election  of  college 
studies  should  be  entirely  discontinued.  But  I  should  like 
to  inquire  by  what  right  and  within  what  limits  it  is  jus- 
tified.   The  most  familiar  argument  in  its  favor  is  that  if 


248  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

a  student  is  allowed  to  choose  along  the  lines  of  his  own 
intellectual  or  professional  interest  he  will  have  enthusiasm, 
the  eagerness  which  comes  with  the  following  of  one's  own 
bent.  Now  just  so  far  as  this  result  is  achieved,  just  so 
far  as  the  quality  of  scholarship  is  improved,  the  proce- 
dure is  good,  and  we  may  follow  it  if  we  do  not  thereby 
lose  other  results  more  valuable  than  our  gain.  But  if 
the  special  interest  comes  into  conflict  with  more  funda- 
mental ones,  if  what  the  student  prefers  is  opposed  to 
what  he  ought  to  prefer,  then  we  of  the  college  cannot 
leave  the  choice  with  him.  We  must  say  to  him  frankly: 
"If  you  do  not  care  for  liberal  training  you  had  better  go 
elsewhere;  we  have  a  special  and  definite  task  assigned  us 
which  demands  that  we  keep  free  from  the  domination  of 
special  or  professional  pursuits.  So  long  as  we  are  faith- 
ful to  that  task  we  cannot  give  you  what  you  ask." 

In  my  opinion,  however,  the  fundamental  motive  of  the 
elective  system  is  not  the  one  which  has  been  mentioned. 
In  the  last  resort  our  teachers  allow  students  to  choose 
their  own  studies,  not  in  order  to  appeal  to  intellectual  or 
to  professional  interest,  but  because  they  themselves  have 
no  choice  of  their  own  in  which  they  believe  with  suffi- 
cient intensity  to  impose  it  upon  their  pupils.  And  this 
lack  of  a  dominating  educational  policy  is  in  turn  an  ex- 
pression of  an  intellectual  attitude,  a  point  of  view,  which 
marks  the  scholars  of  our  time.  In  a  word,  it  seems  to 
me  that  our  willingness  to  allow  students  to  wander  about 
in  the  college  curriculum  is  one  of  the  most  characteristic 
expressions  of  a  certain  intellectual  agnosticism,  a  kind  of 
intellectual  bankruptcy,  into  which,  in  spite  of  all  our 
wealth  of  information,  the  spirit  of  the  time  has  fallen. 
Let  me  explain  my  meaning. 

The  old  classical  curriculum  was  founded  by  men  who 


INAUGURAL  ADDRESS  249 

had  a  theory  of  the  world  and  of  human  life.  They  had 
taken  all  the  available  content  of  human  knowledge  and 
had  wrought  it  together  into  a  coherent  whole.  What 
they  knew  was,  as  judged  by  our  standards,  very  little 
in  amount.  But  upon  that  little  content  they  had  ex- 
pended all  the  infinite  pains  of  understanding  and  inter- 
pretation. They  had  taken  the  separate  judgments  of 
science,  philosophy,  history,  and  the  arts,  and  had  so 
welded  them  together,  so  established  their  relationships 
with  one  another,  so  freed  them  from  contradictions  and 
ambiguities  that,  so  far  as  might  be  in  their  day  and  gen- 
eration, human  life  as  a  whole  and  the  world  about  us 
were  known,  were  understood,  were  rationalized.  They 
had  a  knowledge  of  human  experience  by  which  they 
could  live  and  which  they  could  teach  to  others  engaged 
in  the  activities  of  living. 

But  with  the  invention  of  methods  of  scientific  investi- 
gation and  discovery  there  came  pouring  into  the  mind 
of  Europe  great  masses  of  intellectual  material, — astron- 
omy, physics,  chemistry.  This  content  for  a  time  it  could 
not  understand,  could  not  relate  to  what  it  already  knew. 
The  old  boundary-lines  did  not  enclose  the  new  fields;  the 
old  explanations  and  interpretations  would  not  fit  the  new 
facts.  Knowledge  had  not  grown,  it  had  simply  been  en- 
larged, and  the  two  masses  of  content,  the  old  and  the 
new,  stood  facing  each  other  with  no  common  ground  of 
understanding.  Here  was  the  intellectual  task  of  the  great 
leaders  of  the  early  modern  thought  of  Europe:  to  re- 
establish the  unity  of  knowledge,  to  discover  the  relation- 
ships between  these  apparently  hostile  bodies  of  judgments, 
to  know  the  world  again,  but  with  all  the  added  richness 
of  the  new  insights  and  the  new  information.  This  was 
the  work  of  Leibnitz  and  Spinoza,  of  Kant  and  Hegel,  and 


250  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

those  who  labored  with  them.  And  in  a  very  consider- 
able measure  the  task  had  been  accomphshed,  order  had 
been  restored.  But  again  with  the  inrush  of  the  newer 
discoveries,  first  in  the  field  of  biology  and  then  later  in 
the  world  of  human  relationships,  the  difficulties  have 
returned,  multipUed  a  thousandfold.  Every  day  sees  a 
new  field  of  facts  opened  up,  a  new  method  of  investiga- 
tion invented,  a  new  department  of  knowledge  estabHshed. 
And  in  the  rush  of  it  all  these  new  sciences  come  merely 
as  additions,  not  to  be  understood  but  simply  numbered, 
not  to  be  interpreted  but  simply  Usted  in  the  great  col- 
lection of  separate  fields  of  knowledge.  If  you  will  ex- 
amine the  work  of  any  scientist  within  one  of  these  fields, 
you  will  find  him  ordering,  systematizing,  reducing  to 
principles — in  a  word,  knowing  every  fact  in  terms  of  its 
relation  to  every  other  fact  and  to  the  whole  field  within 
which  it  falls.  But  at  the  same  time  these  separate  sci- 
ences, these  separate  groups  of  judgment,  are  left  stand- 
ing side  by  side  with  no  intelligible  connections,  no  estab- 
lishment of  relationships,  no  interpretation  in  the  sense  in 
which  we  insist  upon  it  with  each  of  the  fields  taken  by 
itself.  Is  it  not  the  characteristic  statement  of  a  scholar 
of  our  time  to  say:  "I  do  not  know  what  may  be  the  ulti- 
mate significance  of  these  facts  and  these  principles;  all 
that  I  know  is  that  if  you  will  follow  my  methods  within 
my  field  you  will  find  the  facts  coming  into  order,  the 
principles  coming  into  simple  and  coherent  arrangement. 
With  any  problems  apart  from  this  order  and  this  arrange- 
ment I  have  intellectually  no  concern." 

It  has  become  an  axiom  with  us  that  the  genuine  stu- 
dent labors  within  his  own  field.  And  if  the  student  ven- 
tures forth  to  examine  the  relations  of  his  field  to  the 
surrounding  country  he  very  easily  becomes  a  popularizer, 


INAUGURAL  ADDRESS  251 

a  litterateur,  a  speculator,  and,  worst  of  all,  unscientific. 
Now  I  do  not  object  to  a  man's  minding  his  own  intellec- 
tual business  if  he  chooses  to  do  so,  but  when  a  man  minds 
his  own  business  because  he  does  not  know  any  other 
business,  because  he  has  no  knowledge  whatever  of  the 
relationships  which  justify  his  business  and  make  it  worth 
while,  then  I  think  one  may  say  that  though  such  a  man 
minds  his  own  affairs  he  does  not  know  them,  he  does  not 
understand  them.  Such  a  man,  from  the  point  of  view 
of  the  demands  of  a  liberal  education,  differs  in  no  essen- 
tial respect  from  the  tradesman  who  does  not  understand 
his  trade  or  the  professional  man  who  merely  practises  his 
profession.  Just  as  truly  as  they,  he  is  shut  up  within  a 
special  interest;  just  as  truly  as  they,  he  is  making  no 
intellectual  attempt  to  understand  his  experience  in  its 
unity.  And  the  pity  of  it  is  that  more  and  more  the 
chairs  in  our  colleges  are  occupied  by  men  who  have  only 
this  special  interest,  this  specialized  information,  and  it  is 
through  them  that  we  attempt  to  give  our  boys  a  liberal 
education,  which  the  teachers  themselves  have  not  achieved. 
I  should  not  like  to  be  misunderstood  in  making  this 
railing  accusation  against  our  teachers  and  our  time.  If 
I  say  that  our  knowledge  is  at  present  a  collection  of  scat- 
tered observations  about  the  world  rather  than  an  under- 
standing of  it,  fairness  compels  the  admission  that  the 
failure  is  due  to  the  inherent  difficulties  of  the  situation 
and  to  the  novelty  of  the  problems  presented.  If  I  cry 
out  against  the  agnosticism  of  our  people  it  is  not  as  one 
who  has  escaped  from  it,  nor  as  one  who  would  point  the 
way  back  to  the  older  synthesis,  but  simply  as  one  who 
believes  that  the  time  has  come  for  a  reconstruction,  for 
a  new  synthesis.  We  have  had  time  enough  now  to  get 
some  notion  of  our  bearings,  shocks  enough  to  get  over 


252     COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

our  nervousness  and  discomfiture  when  a  new  one  comes 
along.  It  is  the  opportunity  and  the  obligation  of  this 
generation  to  think  through  the  content  of  our  knowing 
once  again,  to  understand  it,  so  far  as  we  can.  And  in 
such  a  battle  as  this,  surely  it  is  the  part  of  the  college  to 
take  the  lead.  Here  is  the  mission  of  the  college  teacher 
as  of  no  other  member  of  our  common  life.  Surely  he 
should  stand  before  his  pupils  and  before  all  of  us  as  a 
man  who  has  achieved  some  understanding  of  this  human 
situation  of  ours,  but,  more  than  that,  as  one  who  is  eager 
for  the  conflict  with  the  powers  of  darkness  and  who  can 
lead  his  pupils  in  enthusiastic  devotion  to  the  common 
cause  of  enlightenment. 


And  now,  finally,  after  these  attacks  upon  the  policies 
which  other  men  have  derived  from  their  love  of  knowl- 
edge, may  I  suggest  two  matters  of  policy  which  seem  to 
me  to  follow  from  the  definition  of  education  which  we 
have  taken?  The  first  concerns  the  content  of  the  college 
course;  the  second  has  to  do  with  the  method  of  its  pres- 
entation to  the  undergraduate. 

We  have  said  that  the  system  of  free  election  is  natural 
for  those  to  whom  knowledge  is  simply  a  number  of  sep- 
arate departments.  It  is  equally  true  that  just  in  so  far 
as  knowledge  attains  unity,  just  so  far  as  the  relations  of 
the  various  departments  are  perceived,  freedom  of  elec- 
tion by  the  student  must  be  limited.  For  it  at  once 
appears  that  on  the  one  side  there  are  vast  ranges  of  infor- 
mation which  have  virtually  no  significance  for  the  pur- 
poses of  a  liberal  education,  while  on  the  other  hand  there 
are  certain  elements  so  fundamental  and  vital  that  with- 
out any  one  of  them  a  liberal  education  is  impossible. 


INAUGURAL  ADDRESS  253 

I  should  like  to  indicate  certain  parts  of  human  knowl- 
edge which  seem  to  me  so  essential  that  no  principle  of 
election  should  ever  be  allowed  to  drive  them  out  of  the 
course  of  any  college  student. 

First,  a  student  should  become  acquainted  with  the  fun- 
damental motives  and  purposes  and  beliefs  which,  clearly 
or  unclearly  recognized,  underlie  all  human  experience  and 
bind  it  together.  He  must  perceive  the  moral  strivings, 
the  intellectual  endeavors,  the  aesthetic  experiences  of  his 
race,  and  closely  linked  with  these,  determining  and  de- 
termined by  them,  the  beliefs  about  the  world  which  have 
appeared  in  our  systems  of  religion.  To  investigate  this 
field,  to  bring  it  to  such  clearness  of  formulation  as  may 
be  possible,  is  the  task  of  philosophy — an  essential  ele- 
ment in  any  liberal  education.  Secondly,  as  in  human 
living,  our  motives,  purposes,  and  beliefs  have  found  ex- 
pression in  institutions — those  concerted  modes  of  proce- 
dure by  which  we  work  together — a  student  should  be 
made  acquainted  with  these.  He  should  see  and  appre- 
ciate what  is  intended,  what  accomplished,  and  what  left 
undone  by  such  institutions  as  property,  the  courts,  the 
family,  the  church,  the  mill.  To  know  these  as  contribut- 
ing and  faihng  to  contribute  to  human  welfare  is  the  work 
of  our  social  or  humanistic  sciences,  into  which  a  boy  must 
go  on  his  way  through  the  liberal  college.  Thirdly,  in 
order  to  understand  the  motives  and  the  institutions  of 
human  Ufe  one  must  know  the  conditions  which  surround 
it,  the  stage  on  which  the  game  is  played.  To  give  this 
information  is  the  business  of  astronomy,  geology,  physics, 
chemistry,  biology,  and  the  other  descriptive  sciences. 
These  a  boy  must  know,  so  far  as  they  are  significant  and 
relevant  to  his  purpose.  Fourthly,  as  all  three  of  these 
factors,  the  motives,  the  institutions,  the  natural  processes, 


254  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

have  sprung  from  the  past  and  )iave  come  to  be  what 
they  are  by  change  upon  change  in  the  process  of  time,  the 
student  of  human  life  must  try  to  learn  the  sequence  of 
events  from  which  the  present  has  come.  The  develop- 
ment of  human  thought  and  attitude,  the  development  of 
hvmaan  institutions,  the  development  of  the  world  and  of 
the  beings  about  us — aU  these  must  be  known,  as  throw- 
ing light  upon  present  problems,  present  instrumentali- 
ties, present  opportunities  in  the  Ufe  of  human  endeavor. 
And  in  addition  to  these  four  studies  which  render  human 
experience  in  terms  of  abstract  ideas,  a  hberal  education 
must  take  account  of  those  concrete  representations  of  life 
which  are  given  in  the  arts,  and  especially  in  the  art  of 
literature.  It  is  well  that  a  boy  should  be  acquainted 
with  his  world  not  simply  as  expressed  by  the  principles  of 
knowledge,  but  also  as  depicted  by  the  artist  with  all  the 
vividness  and  definiteness  which  are  possible  in  the  por- 
trayal of  individual  beings  in  individual  relationships. 
These  five  elements,  then,  a  young  man  must  take  from  a 
college  of  liberal  training:  the  contributions  of  philosophy, 
of  humanistic  science,  of  natural  science,  of  history,  and 
of  literature.  So  far  as  knowledge  is  concerned,  these  at 
least  he  should  have,  welded  together  in  some  kind  of  in- 
terpretation of  his  own  experience  and  of  the  world  in 
which  he  lives. 

My  second  suggestion  is  that  our  college  curriculum 
should  be  so  arranged  and  our  instruction  so  devised  that 
its  vital  connection  with  the  Uving  of  men  should  be  ob- 
vious even  to  an  undergraduate.  A  Uttle  while  ago  I 
heard  one  of  the  most  prominent  citizens  of  this  country 
speaking  of  his  college  days,  and  he  said:  "I  remember 
so  vividly  those  few  occasions  on  which  the  professor 
would  put  aside  the  books  and  talk  like  a  real  man  about 


INAUGURAL  ADDRESS  255 

real  things."  Oh,  the  bitterness  of  those  words  to  the 
teacher !  Our  books  are  not  dealing  with  the  real  things, 
and  for  the  most  part  we  are  not  real  men  either,  but 
just  old  fogies  and  bookworms.  And  to  be  perfectly  frank 
about  the  whole  matter,  I  believe  that  in  large  measure 
our  pupils  are  indifferent  to  their  studies  simply  because 
they  do  not  see  that  these  are  important. 

Now  if  we  really  have  a  vital  course  of  study  to  present 
I  believe  that  this  difficulty  can  in  large  measure  be  over- 
come. It  is  possible  to  make  a  freshman  realize  the  need 
of  translating  his  experience  from  the  forms  of  feeling  to 
those  of  ideas.  He  can  and  he  ought  to  be  shown  that 
now,  his  days  of  mere  tutelage  being  over,  it  is  time  for 
him  to  face  the  problems  of  his  people,  to  begin  to  think 
about  those  problems  for  himself,  to  learn  what  other 
men  have  learned  and  thought  before  him — in  a  word,  to 
get  himself  ready  to  take  his  place  among  those  who  are 
responsible  for  the  guidance  of  our  common  life  by  ideas 
and  principles  and  purposes.  If  this  could  be  done,  I 
think  we  should  get  from  the  reahty-loving  American  boy 
something  like  an  intellectual  enthusiasm,  something  of  the 
spirit  that  comes  when  he  plays  a  game  that  seems  to 
him  really  worth  playing.  But  I  do  not  believe  that  this 
result  can  be  achieved  without  a  radical  reversal  of  the 
arrangement  of  the  college  curriculum.  I  should  like  to 
see  every  freshman  at  once  plunged  into  the  problems  of 
philosophy,  into  the  difficulties  and  perplexities  about  our 
institutions,  into  the  scientific  accounts  of  the  world  es- 
pecially as  they  bear  on  human  Hfe,  into  the  portrayals 
of  human  experience  which  are  given  by  the  masters  of 
literature.  If  this  were  done  by  proper  teaching,  it  seems 
to  me  the  boy's  college  course  would  at  once  take  on  sig- 
nificance for  him;   he  would  understand  what  he  is  about; 


256  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

and  though  he  would  be  a  sadly  puzzled  boy  at  the  end 
of  the  first  year,  he  would  still  have  before  him  three 
good  years  of  study,  of  investigation,  of  reflection,  and  of 
discipleship,  in  which  to  achieve,  so  far  as  may  be,  the 
task  to  which  he  has  been  set.  Let  him  once  feel  the 
problems  of  the  present,  and  his  historical  studies  will 
become  significant;  let  him  know  what  other  men  have 
discovered  and  thought  about  his  problems,  and  he  will 
be  ready  to  deal  with  them  himself.  But  in  any  case,  the 
whole  college  course  will  be  unified  and  dominated  by  a 
single  interest,  a  single  purpose — that  of  so  understand- 
ing human  life  as  to  be  ready  and  equipped  for  the  prac- 
tise of  it.  And  this  would  mean  for  the  college,  not  an- 
other seeking  of  the  way  of  quick  returns,  but  rather  an 
escape  from  aimless  wanderings  in  the  mere  bypaths  of 
knowledge,  a  resolute  climbing  on  the  highroad  to  a 
unified  grasp  upon  human  experience. 

I  have  taken  so  much  of  your  time  this  morning  that 
an  apology  seems  due  for  the  things  I  have  omitted  to 
mention.  I  have  said  nothing  of  the  organization  of  the 
college,  nothing  of  the  social  life  of  the  students,  nothing 
of  the  relations  with  the  alumni,  nothing  of  the  needs  and 
qualifications  of  the  teachers,  and  even  within  the  con- 
sideration of  the  course  of  study,  nothing  of  the  value  of 
specialization  or  of  the  disciplinary  subjects  or  of  the 
training  in  language  and  expression.  And  I  have  put 
these  aside  deliberately,  for  the  sake  of  a  cause  which  is 
greater  than  any  of  them — a  cause  which  lies  at  the  very 
heart  of  the  liberal  college.  It  is  the  cause  of  making 
clear  to  the  American  people  the  mission  of  the  teacher, 
of  convincing  them  of  the  value  of  knowledge:  not  the 
specialized  knowledge  which  contributes  to  immediate  prac- 
tical aims,  but  the  unified  understanding  which  is  Insight. 


XVII 

THE  STRENUOUS  LIFE» 

THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

In  speaking  to  you,  men  of  the  greatest  city  of  the 
West,  men  of  the  State  which  gave  to  the  country  Lin- 
coln and  Grant,  men  who  pre-eminently  and  distinctly 
embody  all  that  is  most  American  in  the  American  char- 
acter, I  wish  to  preach,  not  the  doctrine  of  ignoble  ease, 
but  the  doctrine  of  the  strenuous  life,  the  life  of  toil  and 
effort,  of  labor  and  strife;  to  preach  that  highest  form 
of  success  which  comes,  not  to  the  man  who  desires  mere 
easy  peace,  but  to  the  man  who  does  not  shrink  from 
danger,  from  hardship,  or  from  bitter  toil,  and  who  out 
of  these  wins  the  splendid  ultimate  triumph. 

A  life  of  slothful  ease,  a  life  of  that  peace  which  springs 
merely  from  lack  either  of  desire  or  of  power  to  strive 
after  great  things,  is  as  little  worthy  of  a  nation  as  of 
an  individual.  I  ask  only  that  what  every  self-respecting 
American  demands  from  himself  and  from  his  sons  shall 
be  demanded  of  the  American  nation  as  a  whole.  Who 
among  you  would  teach  your  boys  that  ease,  that  peace 
is  to  be  the  first  consideration  in  their  eyes — to  be  the 
ultimate  goal  after  which  they  strive?  You  men  of  Chi- 
cago have  made  this  city  great,  you  men  of  Illinois  have 

*  A  speech  before  the  Hamilton  Club,  Chicago,  April  lo,  1899.  Re- 
printed from  the  volume  entitled  The  Strenuous  Life,  Essays  and  Addresses, 
through  the  courtesy  of  Colonel  Theodore  Roosevelt  and  of  The  Century 
Company. 

257 


258  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

done  your  share,  and  more  than  your  share,  in  making 
America  great,  because  you  neither  preach  nor  practise 
such  a  doctrine.  You  work  yourselves,  and  you  bring  up 
your  sons  to  work.  If  you  are  rich  and  are  worth  your 
salt,  you  will  teach  your  sons  that,  though  they  may  have 
leisure,  it  is  not  to  be  spent  in  idleness;  for  wisely  used 
leisure  merely  means  that  those  who  possess  it,  being  free 
from  the  necessity  of  working  for  their  livelihood,  are  all 
the  more  bound  to  carry  on  some  kind  of  non-remuner- 
ative work  in  science,  in  letters,  in  art,  in  exploration,  in 
historical  research — work  of  the  type  we  most  need  in 
this  country,  the  successful  carrying  out  of  which  reflects 
most  honor  upon  the  nation.  We  do  not  admire  the  man 
of  timid  peace.  We  admire  the  man  who  embodies  vic- 
torious effort;  the  man  who  never  wrongs  his  neighbor, 
who  is  prompt  to  help  a  friend,  but  who  has  those  virile 
qualities  necessary  to  win  in  the  stern  strife  of  actual  life. 
It  is  hard  to  fail,  but  it  is  worse  never  to  have  tried  to 
succeed.  In  this  Ufe  we  get  nothing  save  by  effort.  Free- 
dom from  effort  in  the  present  merely  means  that  there 
has  been  stored  up  effort  in  the  past.  A  man  can  be  freed 
from  the  necessity  of  work  only  by  the  fact  that  he  or 
his  fathers  before  him  have  worked  to  good  purpose.  If 
the  freedom  thus  purchased  is  used  aright,  and  the  man 
still  does  actual  work,  though  of  a  different  kind,  whether 
as  a  writer  or  a  general,  whether  in  the  field  of  pohtics  or 
in  the  field  of  exploration  and  adventure,  he  shows  he  de- 
serves his  good  fortune.  But  if  he  treats  this  period  of 
freedom  from  the  need  of  actual  labor  as  a  period,  not 
of  preparation,  but  of  mere  enjoyment,  even  though  per- 
haps not  of  vicious  enjoyment,  he  shows  that  he  is  simply 
a  cumberer  of  the  earth's  surface,  and  he  surely  unfits 
himself  to  hold  his  own  with  his  fellows  if  the  need  to  do 


THE  STRENUOUS  LIFE  259 

so  should  again  arise.  A  mere  life  of  ease  is  not  in  the 
end  a  very  satisfactory  life,  and,  above  all,  it  is  a  life 
which  ultimately  unfits  those  who  follow  it  for  serious 
work  in  the  world. 

In  the  last  analysis  a  healthy  state  can  exist  only  when 
the  men  and  women  who  make  it  up  lead  clean,  vigor- 
ous, healthy  lives;  when  the  children  are  so  trained  that 
they  shall  endeavor,  not  to  shirk  difl&culties,  but  to  over- 
come them;  not  to  seek  ease,  but  to  know  how  to  wrest 
triumph  from  toil  and  risk.  The  man  must  be  glad  to 
do  a  man's  work,  to  dare  and  endure  and  to  labor;  to 
keep  himself,  and  to  keep  those  dependent  upon  him. 
The  woman  must  be  the  housewife,  the  helpmeet  of  the 
home  maker,  the  wise  and  fearless  mother  of  many  healthy 
children.  In  one  of  Daudet's  powerful  and  melancholy 
books  he  speaks  of  "the  fear  of  maternity,  the  haunting 
terror  of  the  young  wife  of  the  present  day."  When 
such  words  can  be  truthfully  written  of  a  nation,  that 
nation  is  rotten  to  the  heart's  core.  When  men  fear  work 
or  fear  righteous  war,  when  women  fear  motherhood,  they 
tremble  on  the  brink  of  doom;  and  well  it  is  that  they 
should  vanish  from  the  earth,  where  they  are  fit  subjects 
for  the  scorn  of  all  men  and  women  who  are  themselves 
strong  and  brave  and  high-minded. 

As  it  is  with  the  individual,  so  it  is  with  the  nation. 
It  is  a  base  untruth  to  say  that  happy  is  the  nation  that 
has  no  history.  Thrice  happy  is  the  nation  that  has  a 
glorious  history.  Far  better  it  is  to  dare  mighty  things, 
to  win  glorious  triumphs,  even  though  checkered  by  fail- 
ure, than  to  take  rank  with  those  poor  spirits  who  neither 
enjoy  much  nor  suffer  much,  because  they  live  in  the 
gray  twilight  that  knows  not  victory  nor  defeat.  If  in 
1 86 1   the  men  who  loved  the  Union  had  believed  that 


26o  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

peace  was  the  end  of  all  things,  and  war  and  strife  the 
worst  of  all  things,  and  had  acted  up  to  their  belief,  we 
would  have  saved  hundreds  of  thousands  of  lives;  we 
would  have  saved  hundreds  of  millions  of  dollars.  More- 
over, besides  saving  all  the  blood  and  treasure  we  then 
lavished,  we  would  have  prevented  the  heart-break  of 
many  women,  the  dissolution  of  many  homes,  and  we  would 
have  spared  the  country  those  months  of  gloom  and 
shame  when  it  seemed  as  if  our  armies  marched  only 
to  defeat.  We  could  have  avoided  all  this  suffering  sim- 
ply by  shrinking  from  strife.  And  if  we  had  thus  avoided 
it,  we  would  have  shown  that  we  were  weaklings,  and 
that  we  were  unfit  to  stand  among  the  great  nations  of 
the  earth.  Thank  God  for  the  iron  in  the  blood  of  our 
fathers,  the  men  who  upheld  the  wisdom  of  Lincoln  and 
bore  sword  or  rifle  in  the  armies  of  Grant !  Let  us,  the 
children  of  the  men  who  proved  themselves  equal  to  the 
mighty  days,  let  us,  the  children  of  the  men  who  carried 
the  great  Civil  War  to  a  triumphant  conclusion,  praise  the 
God  of  our  fathers  that  the  ignoble  counsels  of  peace  were 
rejected;  that  the  suffering  and  loss,  the  blackness  of  sor- 
row and  despair,  were  unflinchingly  faced,  and  the  years 
of  strife  endured;  for  in  the  end  the  slave  was  freed,  the 
Union  restored,  and  the  mighty  American  republic  placed 
once  more  as  a  helmeted  queen  among  nations. 

We  of  this  generation  do  not  have  to  face  a  task  such 
as  that  our  fathers  faced,  but  we  have  our  tasks,  and  woe 
to  us  if  we  fail  to  perform  them !  We  cannot,  if  we  would, 
play  the  part  of  China,  and  be  content  to  rot  by  inches 
in  ignoble  ease  within  our  borders,  taking  no  interest  in 
what  goes  on  beyond  them,  sunk  in  a  scrambling  com- 
merciaUsm;  heedless  of  the  higher  life,  the  life  of  aspira- 
tion, of  toil  and  risk,  busying  ourselves  only  with  the 


THE  STRENUOUS  LIFE  261 

wants  of  our  bodies  for  the  day,  until  suddenly  we  should 
find,  beyond  a  shadow  of  question,  what  China  has  al- 
ready found,  that  in  this  world  the  nation  that  has  trained 
itself  to  a  career  of  unwarlike  and  isolated  ease  is  bound, 
in  the  end,  to  go  down  before  other  nations  which  have 
not  lost  the  manly  and  adventurous  qualities.  If  we  are 
to  be  a  really  great  people,  we  must  strive  in  good  faith 
to  play  a  great  part  in  the  world.  We  cannot  avoid  meet- 
ing great  issues.  All  that  we  can  determine  for  ourselves 
is  whether  we  shall  meet  them  well  or  ill.  In  1898  we 
could  not  help  being  brought  face  to  face  with  the  prob- 
lem of  war  with  Spain.  All  we  could  decide  was  whether 
we  should  shrink  like  cowards  from  the  contest,  or  enter 
into  it  as  beseemed  a  brave  and  high-spirited  people;  and, 
once  in,  whether  failure  or  success  should  crown  our  ban- 
ners. So  it  is  now.  We  cannot  avoid  the  responsibili- 
ties that  confront  us  in  Hawaii,  Cuba,  Porto  Rico,  and 
the  Philippines.  All  we  can  decide  is  whether  we  shall 
meet  them  in  a  way  that  will  redound  to  the  national 
credit,  or  whether  we  shall  make  of  our  dealings  with 
these  new  problems  a  dark  and  shameful  page  in  our  his- 
tory. To  refuse  to  deal  with  them  at  all  merely  amounts 
to  dealing  with  them  badly.  We  have  a  given  problem 
to  solve.  If  we  undertake  the  solution,  there  is,  of  course, 
always  danger  that  we  may  not  solve  it  aright;  but  to 
refuse  to  undertake  the  solution  simply  renders  it  certain 
that  we  cannot  possibly  solve  it  aright.  The  timid  man, 
the  lazy  man  the  man  who  distrusts  his  country,  the 
overcivilized  man,  who  has  lost  the  great  fighting,  mas- 
terful virtues,  the  ignorant  man,  and  the  man  of  dull 
mind,  whose  soul  is  incapable  of  feeling  the  mighty  lift 
that  thrills  "stern  men  with  empires  in  their  brains" — 
all  these,  of  course,  shrink  from  seeing  the  nation  under- 


262  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

take  its  new  duties;  shrink  from  seeing  us  build  a  navy 
and  an  army  adequate  to  our  needs;  shrink  from  seeing 
us  do  our  share  of  the  world's  work,  by  bringing  order 
out  of  chaos  in  the  great,  fair  tropic  islands  from  which 
the  valor  of  our  soldiers  and  sailors  has  driven  the  Span- 
ish flag.  These  are  the  men  who  fear  the  strenuous  Ufe, 
who  fear  the  only  national  Ufe  which  is  really  worth  lead- 
ing. They  beheve  in  that  cloistered  life  which  saps  the 
hardy  virtues  in  a  nation,  as  it  saps  them  in  the  indi- 
vidual; or  else  they  are  wedded  to  that  base  spirit  of  gain 
and  greed  which  recognizes  in  commercialism  the  be-all 
and  end-all  of  national  life,  instead  of  realizing  that, 
though  an  indispensable  element,  it  is,  after  all,  but  one 
of  the  many  elements  that  go  to  make  up  true  national 
greatness.  No  country  can  long  endure  if  its  founda- 
tions are  not  laid  deep  in  the  material  prosperity  which 
comes  from  thrift,  from  business  energy  and  enterprise, 
from  hard,  unsparing  efifort  in  the  fields  of  industrial  ac- 
tivity; but  neither  was  any  nation  ever  yet  truly  great 
if  it  relied  upon  material  prosperity  alone.  All  honor  must 
be  paid  to  the  architects  of  our  material  prosperity,  to 
the  great  captains  of  industry  who  have  built  our  facto- 
ries and  our  railroads,  to  the  strong  men  who  toil  for  wealth 
with  brain  or  hand;  for  great  is  the  debt  of  the  nation  to 
these  and  their  kind.  But  our  debt  is  yet  greater  to  the 
men  whose  highest  type  is  to  be  found  in  a  statesman  like 
Lincoln,  a  soldier  like  Grant.  They  showed  by  their  lives 
that  they  recognized  the  law  of  work,  the  law  of  strife; 
they  toiled  to  win  a  competence  for  themselves  and  those 
dependent  upon  them;  but  they  recognized  that  there  were 
yet  other  and  even  loftier  duties — duties  to  the  nation 
and  duties  to  the  race. 
We  cannot  sit  huddled  within  our  own  borders  and 


THE  STRENUOUS  LIFE  263 

avow  ourselves  merely  an  assemblage  of  well-to-do  huck- 
sters who  care  nothing  for  what  happens  beyond.  Such 
a  policy  would  defeat  even  its  own  end;  for  as  the  na- 
tions grow  to  have  ever  wider  and  wider  interests,  and 
are  brought  into  closer  and  closer  contact,  if  we  are  to 
hold  our  own  in  the  struggle  for  naval  and  commercial 
supremacy,  we  must  build  up  our  power  without  our  own 
borders.  We  must  build  the  isthmian  canal,  and  we  must 
grasp  the  points  of  vantage  which  will  enable  us  to  have 
our  say  in  deciding  the  destiny  of  the  oceans  of  the  East 
and  the  West. 

So  much  for  the  commercial  side.  From  the  standpoint 
of  international  honor  the  argument  is  even  stronger.  The 
guns  that  thundered  off  Manila  and  Santiago  left  us  echoes 
of  glory,  but  they  also  left  us  a  legacy  of  duty.  If  we 
drove  out  a  mediaeval  tyranny  only  to  make  room  for 
savage  anarchy,  we  had  better  not  have  begxm  the  task 
at  all.  It  is  worse  than  idle  to  say  that  we  have  no  duty 
to  perform,  and  can  leave  to  their  fates  the  islands  we 
have  conquered.  Such  a  course  would  be  the  course  of 
infamy.  It  would  be  followed  at  once  by  utter  chaos  in 
the  wretched  islands  themselves.  Some  stronger,  manlier 
power  would  have  to  step  in  and  do  the  work,  and  we 
would  have  shown  ourselves  weaklings,  unable  to  carry 
to  successful  completion  the  labors  that  great  and  high- 
spirited  nations  are  eager  to  undertake. 

The  work  must  be  done;  we  cannot  escape  our  respon- 
sibility; and  if  we  are  worth  our  salt,  we  shall  be  glad  of 
the  chance  to  do  the  work — glad  of  the  chance  to  show 
ourselves  equal  to  one  of  the  great  tasks  set  modern  civ- 
ilization. But  let  us  not  deceive  ourselves  as  to  the  im- 
portance of  the  task.  Let  us  not  be  misled  by  vainglory 
into  underestimating  the  strain  it  will  put  on  our  powers. 


264  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

Above  all,  let  us,  as  we  value  our  own  self-respect,  face 
the  responsibilities  with  proper  seriousness,  courage,  and 
high  resolve.  We  must  demand  the  highest  order  of  in- 
tegrity and  ability  in  our  public  men  who  are  to  grapple 
with  these  new  problems.  We  must  hold  to  a  rigid  ac- 
countability those  public  servants  who  show  unfaithful- 
ness to  the  interests  of  the  nation  or  inability  to  rise  to 
the  high  level  of  the  new  demands  upon  our  strength  and 
our  resources. 

Of  course  we  must  remember  not  to  judge  any  public 
servant  by  any  one  act,  and  especially  should  we  beware 
of  attacking  the  men  who  are  merely  the  occasions  and 
not  the  causes  of  disaster.  Let  me  illustrate  what  I  mean 
by  the  army  and  the  navy.  If  twenty  years  ago  we  had 
gone  to  war,  we  should  have  found  the  navy  as  absolutely 
unprepared  as  the  army.  At  that  time  our  ships  could 
not  have  encountered  with  success  the  fleets  of  Spain  any 
more  than  nowadays  we  can  put  untrained  soldiers,  no 
matter  how  brave,  who  are  armed  with  archaic  black- 
powder  weapons,  against  well-drilled  regulars  armed  with 
the  highest  type  of  modern  repeating  rifle.  But  in  the 
early  eighties  the  attention  of  the  nation  became  directed 
to  our  naval  needs.  Congress  most  wisely  made  a  series 
of  appropriations  to  build  up  a  new  navy,  and  under  a 
succession  of  able  and  patriotic  secretaries,  of  both  polit- 
ical parties,  the  navy  was  gradually  built  up,  until  its 
material  became  equal  to  its  splendid  personnel,  with  the 
result  that  in  the  summer  of  1898  it  leaped  to  its  proper 
place  as  one  of  the  most  brilliant  and  formidable  fighting 
navies  in  the  entire  world.  We  rightly  pay  all  honor  to 
the  men  controlling  the  navy  at  the  time  it  won  these  great 
deeds,  honor  to  Secretary  Long  and  Admiral  Dewey,  to 
the  captains  who  handled  the  ships  in  action,  to  the  dar- 


THE  STRENUOUS  LIFE  265 

ing  lieutenants  who  braved  death  in  the  smaller  craft,  and 
to  the  heads  of  bureaus  at  Washington  who  saw  that  the 
ships  were  so  commanded,  so  armed,  so  equipped,  so  well 
engined,  as  to  insure  the  best  results.  But  let  us  also 
keep  ever  in  mind  that  all  of  this  would  not  have  availed 
if  it  had  not  been  for  the  wisdom  of  the  men  who  during 
the  preceding  fifteen  years  had  built  up  the  navy.  Keep 
in  mind  the  secretaries  of  the  navy  during  those  years; 
keep  in  mind  the  senators  and  congressmen  who  by  their 
votes  gave  the  money  necessary  to  build  and  to  armor 
the  ships,  to  construct  the  great  guns,  and  to  train  the 
crews;  remember  also  those  who  actually  did  build  the 
ships,  the  armor,  and  the  guns;  and  remember  the  ad- 
mirals and  captains  who  handled  battleship,  cruiser,  and 
torpedo-boat  on  the  high  seas,  alone  and  in  squadrons, 
developing  the  seamanship,  the  gunnery,  and  the  power 
of  acting  together,  which  their  successors  utilized  so  glo- 
riously at  Manila  and  off  Santiago.  And,  gentlemen,  re- 
member the  converse,  too.  Remember  that  justice  has 
two  sides.  Be  just  to  those  who  built  up  the  navy,  and, 
for  the  sake  of  the  future  of  the  country,  keep  in  mind 
those  who  opposed  its  building  up.  Read  the  Congres- 
sional Record.  Find  out  the  senators  and  congressmen  who 
opposed  the  grants  for  building  the  new  ships;  who  op- 
posed the  purchase  of  armor,  without  which  the  ships  were 
worthless;  who  opposed  any  adequate  maintenance  for  the 
Navy  Department  and  strove  to  cut  down  the  number  of 
men  necessary  to  man  our  fleets.  The  men  who  did  these 
things  were  one  and  all  working  to  bring  disaster  on  the 
country.  They  have  no  share  in  the  glory  of  Manila,  in 
the  honor  of  Santiago.  They  have  no  cause  to  feel  proud 
of  the  valor  of  our  sea-captains,  of  the  renown  of  our  flag. 
Their  motives  may  or  may  not  have  been  good,  but  their 


266  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

acts  were  heavily  fraught  with  evil.  They  did  ill  for  the 
national  honor,  and  we  won  in  spite  of  their  sinister  op- 
position. 

Now,  apply  all  this  to  our  public  men  of  to-day.  Our 
army  has  never  been  built  up  as  it  should  be  built  up.  I 
shall  not  discuss  with  an  audience  like  this  the  puerile 
suggestion  that  a  nation  of  seventy  millions  of  freemen  is 
in  danger  of  losing  its  liberties  from  the  existence  of  an 
army  of  one  hundred  thousand  men,  three-fourths  of  whom 
will  be  employed  in  certain  foreign  islands,  in  certain  coast 
fortresses,  and  on  Indian  reservations.  No  man  of  good 
sense  and  stout  heart  can  take  such  a  proposition  seriously. 
If  we  are  such  weaklings  as  the  proposition  implies,  then 
we  are  tmworthy  of  freedom  in  any  event.  To  no  body 
of  men  in  the  United  States  is  the  country  so  much  in- 
debted as  to  the  splendid  officers  and  enlisted  men  of  the 
regular  army  and  navy.  There  is  no  body  from  which 
the  country  has  less  to  fear,  and  none  of  which  it  should 
be  prouder,  none  which  it  should  be  more  anxious  to 
upbuild. 

Our  army  needs  complete  reorganization — not  merely 
enlarging — and  the  reorganization  can  only  come  as  the 
result  of  legislation.  A  proper  general  staff  should  be  es- 
tablished, and  the  positions  of  ordnance,  commissary,  and 
quartermaster  officers  should  be  filled  by  detail  from  the 
line.  Above  all,  the  army  must  be  given  the  chance  to 
exercise  in  large  bodies.  Never  again  should  we  see,  as 
we  saw  in  the  Spanish  War,  major-generals  in  command 
of  divisions  who  had  never  before  commanded  three  com- 
panies together  in  the  field.  Yet,  incredible  to  relate. 
Congress  has  shown  a  queer  inability  to  learn  some  of 
the  lessons  of  the  war.  There  were  large  bodies  of  men 
in  both  branches  who  opposed  the  declaration  of  war,  who 


THE  STRENUOUS  LIFE  267 

opposed  the  ratification  of  peace,  who  opposed  the  up- 
building of  the  army,  and  who  even  opposed  the  purchase 
of  armor  at  a  reasonable  price  for  the  battleships  and 
cruisers,  thereby  putting  an  absolute  stop  to  the  building 
of  any  new  fighting-ships  for  the  navy.  If,  during  the 
years  to  come,  any  disaster  should  befall  our  arms,  afloat 
or  ashore,  and  thereby  any  shame  come  to  the  United 
States,  remember  that  the  blame  will  lie  upon  the  men 
whose  names  appear  upon  the  roll-calls  of  Congress  on 
the  wrong  side  of  these  great  questions.  On  them  will 
lie  the  burden  of  any  loss  of  our  soldiers  and  sailors,  of 
any  dishonor  to  the  flag;  and  upon  you  and  the  people 
of  this  country  will  lie  the  blame  if  you  do  not  repudiate, 
in  no  unmistakable  way,  what  these  men  have  done.  The 
blame  will  not  rest  upon  the  untrained  commander  of  un- 
tried troops,  upon  the  civil  officers  of  a  department  the 
organization  of  which  has  been  left  utterly  inadequate,  or 
upon  the  admiral  with  an  insufficient  number  of  ships;  but 
upon  the  public  men  who  have  so  lamentably  failed  in 
forethought  as  to  refuse  to  remedy  these  evils  long  in  ad- 
vance, and  upon  the  nation  that  stands  behind  those 
public  men. 

So,  at  the  present  hour,  no  small  share  of  the  respon- 
sibility for  the  blood  shed  in  the  Philippines,  the  blood 
of  our  brothers,  and  the  blood  of  their  wild  and  ignorant 
foes,  lies  at  the  thresholds  of  those  who  so  long  delayed 
the  adoption  of  the  treaty  of  peace,  and  of  those  who, 
by  their  worse  than  foolish  words,  deliberately  invited  a 
savage  people  to  plunge  into  a  war  fraught  with  sure  dis- 
aster for  them — a  war,  too,  in  which  our  own  brave  men 
who  follow  the  flag  must  pay  with  their  blood  for  the 
silly,  mock  humanitarianism  of  the  prattlers  who  sit  at 
home  in  peace. 


268  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

The  army  and  the  navy  are  the  sword  and  the  shield 
which  this  nation  must  carry  if  she  is  to  do  her  duty  among 
the  nations  of  the  earth — if  she  is  not  to  stand  merely  as 
the  China  of  the  western  hemisphere.  Our  proper  con- 
duct toward  the  tropic  islands  we  have  wrested  from 
Spain  is  merely  the  form  which  our  duty  has  taken  at 
the  moment.  Of  course  we  are  bound  to  handle  the  af- 
fairs of  our  own  household  well.  We  must  see  that  there 
is  civic  honesty,  civic  cleanUness,  civic  good  sense  in  our 
home  administration  of  city,  State,  and  nation.  We  must 
strive  for  honesty  in  office,  for  honesty  toward  the  credi- 
tors of  the  nation  and  of  the  individual;  for  the  widest 
freedom  of  individual  initiative  where  possible,  and  for  the 
wisest  control  of  individual  initiative  where  it  is  hostile  to 
the  welfare  of  the  many.  But  because  we  set  our  own 
household  in  order  we  are  not  thereby  excused  from  play- 
ing our  part  in  the  great  affairs  of  the  world.  A  man's 
first  duty  is  to  his  own  home,  but  he  is  not  thereby  ex- 
cused from  doing  his  duty  to  the  State;  for  if  he  fails  in 
this  second  duty  it  is  under  the  penalty  of  ceasing  to  be 
a  freeman.  In  the  same  way,  while  a  nation's  first  duty 
is  within  its  own  borders,  it  is  not  thereby  absolved  from 
facing  its  duties  in  the  world  as  a  whole;  and  if  it  refuses 
to  do  so,  it  merely  forfeits  its  right  to  struggle  for  a  place 
among  the  peoples  that  shape  the  destiny  of  mankind. 

In  the  West  Indies  and  the  Philippines  alike  we  are 
confronted  by  most  difficult  problems.  It  is  cowardly  to 
shrink  from  solving  them  in  the  proper  way;  for  solved 
they  must  be,  if  not  by  us,  then  by  some  stronger  and 
more  manful  race.  If  we  are  too  weak,  too  selfish,  or  too 
foolish  to  solve  them,  some  bolder  and  abler  people  must 
undertake  the  solution.  Personally,  I  am  far  too  firm  a 
believer  in  the  greatness  of  my  country  and  the  power  of 


THE  STRENUOUS  LIFE  269 

my  countrymen  to  admit  for  one  moment  that  we  shall 
ever  be  driven  to  the  ignoble  alternative. 

The  problems  are  different  for  the  different  islands. 
Porto  Rico  is  not  large  enough  to  stand  alone.  We  must 
govern  it  wisely  and  well,  primarily  in  the  interest  of  its 
own  people.  Cuba  is,  in  my  judgment,  entitled  ultimately 
to  settle  for  itself  whether  it  shall  be  an  independent 
State  or  an  integral  portion  of  the  mightiest  of  repubUcs. 
But  until  order  and  stable  liberty  are  secured,  we  must 
remain  in  the  island  to  insure  them;  and  infinite  tact, 
judgment,  moderation,  and  courage  must  be  shown  by 
our  military  and  civil  representatives  in  keeping  the  is- 
land pacified,  in  relentlessly  stamping  out  brigandage,  in 
protecting  all  alike,  and  yet  in  showing  proper  recogni- 
tion to  the  men  who  have  fought  for  Cuban  liberty.  The 
Philippines  offer  a  yet  graver  problem.  Their  population 
includes  half-caste  and  native  Christians,  warlike  Moslems, 
and  wild  pagans.  Many  of  their  people  are  utterly  unfit 
for  self-government,  and  show  no  signs  of  becoming  fit. 
Others  may  in  time  become  fit,  but  at  present  can  only 
take  part  in  self-government  under  a  wise  supervision,  at 
once  firm  and  beneficent.  We  have  driven  Spanish  tyr- 
anny from  the  islands.  If  we  now  let  it  be  replaced  by 
savage  anarchy,  our  work  has  been  for  harm  and  not  for 
good.  I  have  scant  patience  with  those  who  fear  to  under- 
take the  task  of  governing  the  Philippines,  and  who  openly 
avow  that  they  do  fear  to  undertake  it,  or  that  they  shrink 
from  it  because  of  the  expense  and  trouble;  but  I  have 
even  scanter  patience  with  those  who  make  a  pretense  of 
humanitarianism  to  hide  and  cover  their  timidity,  and  who 
cant  about  "liberty"  and  the  "consent  of  the  governed" 
in  order  to  excuse  themselves  for  their  unwillingness  to 
play  the  part  of  men.     Their  doctrines,  if  carried  out, 


270     COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

would  make  it  incumbent  upon  us  to  leave  the  Apaches 
of  Arizona  to  work  out  their  own  salvation,  and  to  de- 
cline to  interfere  in  a  single  Indian  reservation.  Their 
doctrines  condemn  your  forefathers  and  mine  for  ever 
having  settled  in  these  United  States. 

England's  rule  in  India  and  Egypt  has  been  of  great 
benefit  to  England,  for  it  has  trained  up  generations  of 
men  accustomed  to  look  at  the  larger  and  loftier  side  of 
public  life.  It  has  been  of  even  greater  benefit  to  India 
and  Egypt.  And  finally,  and  most  of  all,  it  has  advanced 
the  cause  of  civilization.  So,  if  we  do  our  duty  aright 
in  the  Philippines,  we  will  add  to  that  national  renown 
which  is  the.  highest  and  finest  part  of  national  life,  will 
greatly  benefit  the  people  of  the  Phihppine  Islands,  and, 
above  all,  we  will  play  our  part  well  in  the  great  work 
of  uplifting  mankind.  But  to  do  this  work,  keep  ever  in 
mind  that  we  must  show  in  a  very  high  degree  the  quali- 
ties of  courage,  of  honesty,  and  of  good  judgment.  Re- 
sistance must  be  stamped  out.  The  first  and  all-impor- 
tant work  to  be  done  is  to  establish  the  supremacy  of  our 
flag.  We  must  put  down  armed  resistance  before  we  can 
accomplish  anything  else,  and  there  should  be  no  parley- 
ing, no  faltering,  in  dealing  with  our  foe.  As  for  those 
in  our  own  country  who  encourage  the  foe,  we  can  afford 
contemptuously  to  disregard  them;  but  it  must  be  re- 
membered that  their  utterances  are  not  saved  from  being 
treasonable  merely  by  the  fact  that  they  are  despicable. 

When  once  we  have  put  down  armed  resistance,  when 
once  our  rule  is  acknowledged,  then  an  even  more  difficult 
task  will  begin,  for  then  we  must  see  to  it  that  the  islands 
are  administered  with  absolute  honesty  and  with  good 
judgment.  If  we  let  the  public  service  of  the  islands  be 
turned  into  the  prey  of  the  spoils  politician,  we  shall  have 


THE  STRENUOUS  LIFE  271 

begun  to  tread  the  path  which  Spain  trod  to  her  own 
destruction.  We  must  send  out  there  only  good  and  able 
men,  chosen  for  their  fitness,  and  not  because  of  their  par- 
tisan service,  and  these  men  must  not  only  administer 
impartial  justice  to  the  natives  and  serve  their  own  gov- 
ernment with  honesty  and  fidehty,  but  must  show  the 
utmost  tact  and  firmness,  remembering  that,  with  such 
people  as  those  with  whom  we  are  to  deal,  weakness  is 
the  greatest  of  crimes,  and  that  next  to  weakness  comes 
lack  of  consideration  for  their  principles  and  prejudices. 

I  preach  to  you,  then,  my  countrymen,  that  our  coun- 
try calls  not  for  the  life  of  ease  but  for  the  life  of  strenu- 
ous endeavor.  The  twentieth  century  looms  before  us 
big  with  the  fate  of  many  nations.  If  we  stand  idly  by, 
if  we  seek  merely  swollen,  slothful  ease  and  ignoble  peace, 
if  we  shrink  from  the  hard  contests  where  men  must  win 
at  hazard  of  their  lives  and  at  the  risk  of  all  they  hold 
dear,  then  the  bolder  and  stronger  peoples  will  pass  us 
by,  and  will  win  for  themselves  the  domination  of  the 
world.  Let  us  therefore  boldly  face  the  life  of  strife, 
resolute  to  do  our  duty  well  and  manfully;  resolute  to 
uphold  righteousness  by  deed  and  by  word;  resolute  to 
be  both  honest  and  brave,  to  serve  high  ideals,  yet  to 
use  practical  methods.  Above  all,  let  us  shrink  from  no 
strife,  moral  or  physical,  within  or  without  the  nation, 
provided  we  are  certain  that  the  strife  is  justified,  for  it 
is  only  through  strife,  through  hard  and  dangerous  en- 
deavor, that  we  shall  ultimately  win  the  goal  of  true 
national  greatness. 


XVIII 

AN  APOLOGY  FOR  IDLERS  ^ 

ROBERT  LOUIS   STEVENSON 

"Boswell:  We  grow  weary  when  idle. 

"Johnson:  That  is,  sir,  because  others  being  busy,  we  want  com- 
pany; but  if  we  were  idle,  there  would  be  no  growing  weary;  we  should 
all  entertain  one  another." 

Just  now,  when  every  one  is  bound,  under  pain  of  a 
decree  in  absence  convicting  them  of  /ese-respectability, 
to  enter  on  some  lucrative  profession,  and  labor  therein 
with  something  not  far  short  of  enthusiasm,  a  cry  from 
the  opposite  party  who  are  content  when  they  have  enough, 
and  like  to  look  on  and  enjoy  in  the  meanwhile,  savors 
a  little  of  bravado  and  gasconade.  And  yet  this  should 
not  be.  Idleness  so  called,  which  does  not  consist  in 
doing  nothing,  but  in  doing  a  great  deal  not  recognized 
in  the  dogmatic  formularies  of  the  ruUng  class,  has  as 
good  a  right  to  state  its  position  as  industry  itself.  It 
is  admitted  that  the  presence  of  people  who  refuse  to 
enter  in  the  great  handicap  race  for  sixpenny  pieces  is 
at  once  an  insult  and  a  disenchantment  for  those  who 
do.  A  fine  fellow  (as  we  see  so  many)  takes  his  determi- 
nation, votes  for  the  sixpences,  and,  in  the  emphatic  Ameri- 
canism, "goes  for"  them.  And  while  such  an  one  is 
ploughing  distressfully  up  the  road,  it  is  not  hard  to  under- 
stand his  resentment,  when  he  perceives  cool  persons  in  the 

'  Reprinted  from  Virginibus  Puerisque. 
272 


AN  APOLOGY  FOR  IDLERS  273 

meadows  by  the  wayside,  lying  with  a  handkerchief  over 
their  ears  and  a  glass  at  their  elbow.  Alexander  is  touched 
in  a  very  delicate  place  by  the  disregard  of  Diogenes. 
Where  was  the  glory  of  having  taken  Rome  for  these  tu- 
multuous barbarians  who  poured  into  the  Senate  house 
and  found  the  Fathers  sitting  silent  and  unmoved  by 
their  success?  It  is  a  sore  thing  to  have  labored  along 
and  scaled  the  arduous  hilltops,  and,  when  all  is  done,  find 
humanity  indifferent  to  your  achievement.  Hence  physi- 
cists condemn  the  unphysical;  financiers  have  only  a  su- 
perficial toleration  for  those  who  know  Uttle  of  stocks; 
literary  persons  despise  the  unlettered;  and  people  of  all 
pursuits  combine  to  disparage  those  who  have  none. 

But,  though  this  is  one  difficulty  of  the  subject,  it  is 
not  the  greatest.  You  could  not  be  put  in  prison  for 
speaking  against  industry,  but  you  can  be  sent  to  Coven- 
try for  speaking  like  a  fool.  The  greatest  difl&culty  with 
most  subjects  is  to  do  them  well;  therefore,  please  to 
remember  this  is  an  apology.  It  is  certain  that  much 
may  be  judiciously  argued  in  favor  of  diligence;  only 
there  is  something  to  be  said  against  it,  and  that  is  what, 
on  the  present  occasion,  I  have  to  say.  To  state  one 
argument  is  not  necessarily  to  be  deaf  to  all  others,  and 
that  a  man  has  written  a  book  of  travels  in  Montenegro 
is  no  reason  why  he  should  never  have  been  to  Richmond. 

It  is  surely  beyond  a  doubt  that  people  should  be  a  good 
deal  idle  in  youth.  For  though  here  and  there  a  Lord 
Macaulay  may  escape  from  school  honors  with  all  his  wits 
about  him,  most  boys  pay  so  dear  for  their  medals  that 
they  never  afterward  have  a  shot  in  their  locker,  and 
begin  the  world  bankrupt.  And  the  same  holds  true  dur- 
ing all  the  time  a  lad  is  educating  himself,  or  suffering 
others  to  educate  him.     It  must  have  been  a  very  fool- 


274  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

ish  old  gentleman  who  addressed  Johnson  at  Oxford  in 
these  words:  "Young  man,  ply  your  book  diligently  now, 
and  acquire  a  stock  of  knowledge;  for  when  years  come 
upon  you,  you  will  find  that  poring  upon  books  will  be 
but  an  irksome  task."  The  old  gentleman  seems  to  have 
been  unaware  that  many  other  things  besides  reading  grow 
irksome,  and  not  a  few  become  impossible,  by  the  time  a 
man  has  to  use  spectacles  and  cannot  walk  without  a 
stick.  Books  are  good  enough  in  their  own  way,  but 
they  are  a  mighty  bloodless  substitute  for  life.  It  seems 
a  pity  to  sit,  like  the  Lady  of  Shalott,  peering  into  a  mir- 
ror, with  your  back  turned  on  all  the  bustle  and  glamour 
of  reality.  And  if  a  man  reads  very  hard,  as  the  old  anec- 
dote reminds  us,  he  will  have  little  time  for  thoughts. 

If  you  look  back  on  your  own  education,  I  am  sure  it 
will  not  be  the  full,  vivid,  instructive  hours  of  truantry 
that  you  regret;  you  would  rather  cancel  some  lack-lustre 
periods  between  sleep  and  waking  in  the  class.  For  my 
own  part,  I  have  attended  a  good  many  lectures  in  my 
time.  I  still  remember  that  the  spinning  of  a  top  is  a 
case  of  Kinetic  Stability.  I  still  remember  that  Emphy- 
teusis is  not  a  disease,  nor  Stillicide  a  crime.  But  though 
I  would  not  willingly  part  with  such  scraps  of  science,  I 
do  not  set  the  same  store  by  them  as  by  certain  other 
odds  and  ends  that  I  came  by  in  the  open  street  while 
I  was  playing  truant.  This  is  not  the  moment  to  dilate 
on  that  mighty  place  of  education,  which  was  the  favor- 
ite school  of  Dickens  and  of  Balzac,  and  turns  out  yearly 
many  inglorious  masters  in  the  Science  of  the  Aspects  of 
Life.  Suffice  it  to  say  this:  if  a  lad  does  not  learn  in  the 
streets,  it  is  because  he  has  no  faculty  of  learning.  Nor 
is  the  truant  always  in  the  streets,  for,  if  he  prefers,  he 
may  go  out  by  the  gardened  suburbs  into  the  country. 


AN  APOLOGY  FOR  IDLERS  275 

He  may  pitch  on  some  tuft  of  lilacs  over  a  burn,  and 
smoke  innumerable  pipes  to  the  tune  of  the  water  on  the 
stones.  A  bird  will  sing  in  the  thicket.  And  there  he 
may  fall  into  a  vein  of  kindly  thought,  and  see  things 
in  a  new  perspective.  Why,  if  this  be  not  education, 
what  is?  We  may  conceive  Mr.  Worldly  Wiseman  ac- 
costing such  an  one,  and  the  conversation  that  should 
thereupon  ensue: 

"How  now,  young  fellow,  what  dost  thou  here?" 

"Truly,  sir,  I  take  mine  ease." 

"Is  not  this  the  hour  of  the  class?  and  shouldst  thou 
not  be  plying  thy  Book  with  diligence,  to  the  end  thou 
mayest  obtain  knowledge?" 

"Nay,  but  thus  also  I  follow  after  Learning,  by  your 
leave." 

"Learning,  quotha!  After  what  fashion,  I  pray  thee? 
Is  it  mathematics?" 

"No,  to  be  sure." 

"Is  it  metaphysics?" 

"Nor  that." 

"Is  it  some  language?" 

"Nay,  it  is  no  language." 

"Is  it  a  trade?" 

"Nor  a  trade  neither." 

"Why,  then,  what  is't?" 

"Indeed,  sir,  as  a  time  may  soon  come  for  me  to  go 
upon  Pilgrimage,  I  am  desirous  to  note  what  is  commonly 
done  by  persons  in  my  case,  and  where  are  the  ugliest 
Sloughs  and  Thickets  on  the  Road;  as  also,  what  man- 
ner of  Staff  is  of  the  best  service.  Moreover,  I  lie  here, 
by  this  water,  to  learn  by  root-of-heart  a  lesson  which 
my  master  teaches  me  to  call  Peace,  or  Contentment." 

Hereupon  Mr.  Worldly  Wiseman  was  much  commoved 


276  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

with  passion,  and  shaking  his  cane  with  a  very  threatful 
countenance,  broke  forth  upon  this  wise:  "Learning, 
quotha !"  said  he;  "I  would  have  all  such  rogues  scourged 
by  the  Hangman!" 

And  so  he  would  go  his  way,  ruffing  out  his  cravat 
with  a  crackle  of  starch,  like  a  turkey  when  it  spread  its 
feathers. 

Now  this,  of  Mr.  Wiseman's,  is  the  common  opinion. 
A  fact  is  not  called  a  fact,  but  a  piece  of  gossip,  if  it  does 
not  fall  into  one  of  your  scholastic  categories.  An  inquiry 
must  be  in  some  acknowledged  direction,  with  a  name  to 
go  by;  or  else  you  are  not  inquiring  at  all,  only  lounging; 
and  the  workhouse  is  too  good  for  you.  It  is  supposed 
that  all  knowledge  is  at  the  bottom  of  a  well  or  the  far 
end  of  a  telescope.  Sainte-Beuve,  as  he  grew  older,  came 
to  regard  all  experience  as  a  single  great  book,  in  which 
to  study  for  a  few  years  ere  we  go  hence;  and  it  seemed 
all  one  to  him  whether  you  should  read  in  chapter  XX, 
which  is  the  differential  calculus,  or  in  chapter  XXXIX, 
which  is  hearing  the  band  play  in  the  gardens.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  an  intelligent  person,  looking  out  of  his 
eyes  and  hearkening  in  his  ears,  with  a  smile  on  his  face 
all  the  time,  will  get  more  true  education  than  many 
another  in  a  life  of  heroic  vigils.  There  is  certainly  some 
chill  and  arid  knowledge  to  be  found  upon  the  summits 
of  formal  and  laborious  science;  but  it  is  all  round  about 
you,  and  for  the  trouble  of  looking,  that  you  will  acquire 
the  warm  and  palpitating  facts  of  life.  While  others  are 
filling  their  memory  with  a  lumber  of  words,  one-half  of 
which  they  will  forget  before  the  week  be  out,  your  tru- 
ant may  learn  some  really  useful  art:  to  play  the  fiddle, 
to  know  a  good  cigar,  or  to  speak  with  ease  and  oppor- 
tunity to  all  varieties  of  men.     Many  who  have  **  plied 


AN  APOLOGY  FOR  IDLERS  277 

their  book  diligently,"  and  know  all  about  some  one 
branch  or  another  of  accepted  lore,  come  out  of  the  study 
with  an  ancient  and  owl-like  demeanor,  and  prove  dry, 
stockish,  and  dyspeptic  in  all  the  better  and  brighter 
parts  of  Hfe.  Many  make  a  large  fortune,  who  remain 
underbred  and  pathetically  stupid  to  the  last.  And  mean- 
time there  goes  the  idler,  who  began  life  along  with  them 
— by  your  leave,  a  different  picture.  He  has  had  time 
to  take  care  of  his  health  and  his  spirits;  he  has  been  a 
great  deal  in  the  open  air,  which  is  the  most  salutary  of 
all  things  for  both  body  and  mind;  and  if  he  has  never 
read  the  great  Book  in  very  recondite  places,  he  has  dipped 
into  it  and  skimmed  it  over  to  excellent  purpose.  Might 
not  the  student  afford  some  Hebrew  roots,  and  the  busi- 
ness man  some  of  his  half-crowns,  for  a  share  of  the  idler's 
knowledge  of  life  at  large,  and  Art  of  Living?  Nay,  and 
the  idler  has  another  and  more  important  quality  than 
these.  I  mean  his  wisdom.  He  who  has  much  looked  on 
at  the  childish  satisfaction  of  other  people  in  their  hob- 
bies will  regard  his  own  with  only  a  very  ironical  indul- 
gence. He  will  not  be  heard  among  the  dogmatists.  He 
will  have  a  great  and  cool  allowance  for  all  sorts  of  people 
and  opinions.  If  he  finds  no  out-of-the-way  truths,  he 
will  identify  himself  with  no  very  burning  falsehood.  His 
way  takes  him  along  a  by-road,  not  much  frequented,  but 
very  even  and  pleasant,  which  is  called  Commonplace  Lane, 
and  leads  to  the  Belvedere  of  Common  Sense.  Thence  he 
shall  command  an  agreeable,  if  no  very  noble  prospect; 
and  while  others  behold  the  East  and  West,  the  Devil  and 
the  Sunrise,  he  will  be  contentedly  aware  of  a  sort  of  morn- 
ing hour  upon  all  sublunary  things,  with  an  army  of  shad- 
ows running  speedily  and  in  many  different  directions  into 
the  great  daylight  of  Eternity.     The  shadows  and  the  gen- 


278  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

erations,  the  shrill  doctors  and  the  plangent  wars,  go  by 
into  ultimate  silence  and  emptiness;  but  underneath  all 
this,  a  man  may  see,  out  of  the  Belvedere  windows,  much 
green  and  peaceful  landscape;  many  firelit  parlors;  good 
people  laughing,  drinking,  and  making  love  as  they  did 
before  the  Flood  or  the  French  Revolution;  and  the  old 
shepherd  telling  his  tale  under  the  hawthorn. 

Extreme  busyness,  whether  at  school  or  college,  kirk  or 
market,  is  a  symptom  of  deficient  vitality;  and  a  faculty 
for  idleness  imphes  a  catholic  appetite  and  a  strong  sense 
of  personal  identity.  There  is  a  sort  of  dead-ahve,  hack- 
neyed people  about,  who  are  scarcely  conscious  of  hving 
except  in  the  exercise  of  some  conventional  occupation. 
Bring  these  fellows  into  the  country,  or  set  them  aboard 
ship,  and  you  will  see  how  they  pine  for  their  desk  or 
their  study.  They  have  no  curiosity;  they  cannot  give 
themselves  over  to  random  provocations;  they  do  not  take 
pleasure  in  the  exercise  of  their  faculties  for  its  own  sake; 
and,  unless  Necessity  lays  about  them  with  a  stick,  they 
will  even  stand  still.  It  is  no  good  speaking  to  such  folk: 
they  cannot  be  idle,  their  nature  is  not  generous  enough; 
and  they  pass  those  hours  in  a  sort  of  coma,  which  are 
not  dedicated  to  furious  moiling  in  the  gold-mill.  When 
they  do  not  require  to  go  to  the  office,  when  they  are  not 
hungry  and  have  no  mind  to  drink,  the  whole  breathing 
world  is  a  blank  to  them.  If  they  have  to  wait  an  hour 
or  so  for  a  train,  they  fall  into  a  stupid  trance  with  their 
eyes  open.  To  see  them,  you  would  suppose  there  was 
nothing  to  look  at  and  no  one  to  speak  with;  you  would 
imagine  they  were  paralyzed  or  alienated;  and  yet  very 
possibly  they  are  hard  workers  in  their  own  way,  and 
have  good  eyesight  for  a  flaw  in  a  deed  or  a  turn  of  the 
market.     They  have  been  to  school  and  college,  but  all 


AN  APOLOGY  FOR  IDLERS  279 

the  time  they  had  their  eye  on  the  medal;  they  have 
gone  about  in  the  world  and  mixed  with  clever  people, 
but  all  the  time  they  were  thinking  of  their  own  affairs. 
As  if  a  man's  soul  were  not  too  small  to  begin  with,  they 
have  dwarfed  and  narrowed  theirs  by  a  life  of  all  work 
and  no  play;  until  here  they  are  at  forty,  with  a  listless 
attention,  a  mind  vacant  of  all  material  of  amusement, 
and  not  one  thought  to  rub  against  another,  while  they 
wait  for  the  train.  Before  he  was  breeched,  he  might 
have  clambered  on  the  boxes;  when  he  was  twenty  he 
would  have  stared  at  the  girls;  but  now  the  pipe  is  smoked 
out,  the  snuff-box  empty,  and  my  gentleman  sits  bolt  up- 
right upon  a  bench,  with  lamentable  eyes.  This  does  not 
appeal  to  me  as  being  Success  in  Life. 

But  it  is  not  only  the  person  himself  who  suffers  from 
his  busy  habits,  but  his  wife  and  children,  his  friends  and 
relations,  and  down  to  the  very  people  he  sits  with  in  a 
railway  carriage  or  an  omnibus.  Perpetual  devotion  to 
what  a  man  calls  his  business  is  only  to  be  sustained  by 
perpetual  neglect  of  many  other  things.  And  it  is  not  by 
any  means  certain  that  a  man's  business  is  the  most  im- 
portant thing  he  has  to  do.  To  an  impartial  estimate  it 
will  seem  clear  that  many  of  the  wisest,  most  virtuous, 
and  most  beneficent  parts  that  are  to  be  played  upon  the 
Theatre  of  Life  are  filled  by  gratuitous  performers,  and 
pass,  among  the  world  at  large,  as  phases  of  idleness.  For 
in  that  Theatre,  not  only  the  walking  gentlemen,  singing 
chambermaids,  and  diUgent  fiddlers  in  the  orchestra,  but 
those  who  look  on  and  clap  their  hands  from  the  benches, 
do  really  play  a  part  and  fulfil  important  offices  toward 
the  general  result.  You  are  no  doubt  very  dependent  on 
the  care  of  your  lawyer  and  stockbroker,  of  the  guards  and 
signalmen  who  convey  you  rapidly  from  place  to  place, 


28o  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

and  the  policemen  who  walk  the  streets  for  your  protec- 
tion; but  is  there  not  a  thought  of  gratitude  in  your 
heart  for  certain  other  benefactors  who  set  you  smiling 
when  they  fall  in  your  way,  or  season  your  dinner  with 
good  company?  Colonel  Newcome  helped  to  lose  his 
friend's  money;  Fred  Bayham  had  an  ugly  trick  of  bor- 
rowing shirts;  and  yet  they  were  better  people  to  fall 
among  than  Mr.  Barnes.  And  though  Falstaff  was  neither 
sober  nor  very  honest,  I  think  I  could  name  one  or  two 
long-faced  Barabbases  whom  the  world  could  better  have 
done  without.  Hazhtt  mentions  that  he  was  more  sen- 
sible of  obligation  to  Northcote,  who  had  never  done  him 
anything  he  could  call  a  service,  than  to  his  whole  circle 
of  ostentatious  friends;  for  he  thought  a  good  companion 
emphatically  the  greatest  benefactor.  I  know  there  are 
people  in  the  world  who  cannot  feel  grateful  unless  the 
favor  has  been  done  them  at  the  cost  of  pain  and  diffi- 
culty. But  this  is  a  churlish  disposition.  A  man  may 
send  you  six  sheets  of  letter-paper  covered  with  the  most 
entertaining  gossip,  or  you  may  pass  half  an  hour  pleas- 
antly, perhaps  profitably,  over  an  article  of  his;  do  you 
think  the  service  would  be  greater  if  he  had  made  the 
manuscript  in  his  heart's  blood,  like  a  compact  with  the 
devil  ?  Do  you  really  fancy  you  should  be  more  beholden 
to  your  correspondent  if  he  had  been  damning  you  all 
the  while  for  your  importunity  ?  Pleasures  are  more  bene- 
ficial than  duties  because,  like  the  quaHty  of  mercy,  they 
are  not  strained,  and  they  are  twice  blest.  There  must 
always  be  two  to  a  kiss,  and  there  may  be  a  score  in  a 
jest;  but  wherever  there  is  an  element  of  sacrifice,  the 
favor  is  conferred  with  pain,  and,  among  generous  people, 
received  with  confusion.  There  is  no  duty  we  so  much 
underrate  as  the  duty  of  being  happy.     By  being  happy, 


AN  APOLOGY  FOR  IDLERS  281 

we  sow  anonymous  benefits  upon  the  world,  which  remain 
unknown  even  to  ourselves,  or,  when  they  are  disclosed, 
surprise  nobody  so  much  as  the  benefactor.  The  other 
day,  a  ragged,  barefoot  boy  ran  down  the  street  after  a 
marble  with  so  jolly  an  air  that  he  set  every  one  he  passed 
into  a  good  humor;  one  of  these  persons,  who  had  been 
delivered  from  more  than  usually  black  thoughts,  stopped 
the  little  fellow  and  gave  him  some  money  with  this  re- 
mark: "You  see  what  sometimes  comes  of  looking  pleased." 
If  he  had  looked  pleased  before,  he  had  now  to  look  both 
pleased  and  mystified.  For  my  part,  I  justify  this  en- 
couragement of  smiling  rather  than  tearful  children;  I  do 
not  wish  to  pay  for  tears  anywhere  but  upon  the  stage; 
but  I  am  prepared  to  deal  largely  in  the  opposite  commod- 
ity. A  happy  man  or  woman  is  a  better  thing  to  find 
than  a  five-pound  note.  He  or  she  is  a  radiating  focus 
of  good- will;  and  their  entrance  into  a  room  is  as  though 
another  candle  had  been  lighted.  We  need  not  care 
whether  they  could  prove  the  forty-seventh  proposition; 
they  do  a  better  thing  than  that — they  practically  demon- 
strate the  great  Theorem  of  the  Livableness  of  Life.  Con- 
sequently, if  a  person  cannot  be  happy  without  remaining 
idle,  idle  he  should  remain.  It  is  a  revolutionary  pre- 
cept; but,  thanks  to  hunger  and  the  workhouse,  one  not 
easily  to  be  abused;  and  within  practical  limits,  it  is  one 
of  the  most  incontestable  truths  in  the  whole  Body  of 
Morality.  Look  at  one  of  your  industrious  fellows  for  a 
moment,  I  beseech  you.  He  sows  hurry  and  reaps  indi- 
gestion; he  puts  a  vast  deal  of  activity  out  to  interest 
and  receives  a  large  measure  of  nervous  derangement  in 
return.  Either  he  absents  himself  entirely  from  all  fellow- 
ship, and  lives  a  recluse  in  a  garret,  with  carpet  slippers 
and  a  leaden  ink-pot;   or  he  comes  among  people  swiftly 


2»2 


COLLEGE  AND   THE  FUTURE 


and  bitterly,  in  a  contraction  of  his  whole  nervous  system, 
to  discharge  some  temper  before  he  returns  to  work.  I 
do  not  care  how  much  or  how  well  he  works,  this  fellow 
is  an  evil  feature  in  other  people's  lives.  They  would  be 
happier  if  he  were  dead.  They  could  easier  do  without 
his  services  in  the  Circumlocution  Office  than  they  can 
tolerate  his  fractious  spirits.  He  poisons  life  at  the  well- 
head. It  is  better  to  be  beggared  out  of  hand  by  a  scape- 
grace nephew  than  daily  hag-ridden  by  a  peevish  uncle. 

And  what,  in  God's  name,  is  all  this  pother  about? 
For  what  cause  do  they  embitter  their  own  and  other 
people's  lives  ?  That  a  man  should  publish  three  or  thirty 
articles  a  year,  that  he  should  finish  or  not  finish  his  great 
allegorical  picture,  are  questions  of  little  interest  to  the 
world.  The  ranks  of  life  are  full;  and,  although  a  thou- 
sand fall,  there  are  always  some  to  go  into  the  breach. 
When  they  told  Joan  of  Arc  she  should  be  at  home  mind- 
ing women's  work,  she  answered  there  were  plenty  to 
spin  and  wash.  And  so  even  with  your  own  rare  gifts ! 
When  nature  is  "so  careless  of  the  single  life,"  why  should 
we  coddle  ourselves  into  the  fancy  that  our  own  is  of 
exceptional  importance?  Suppose  Shakespeare  had  been 
knocked  on  the  head  some  dark  night  in  Sir  Thomas 
Lucy's  preserves,  the  world  would  have  wagged  on  better 
or  worse,  the  pitcher  gone  to  the  well,  the  scythe  to  the 
com,  and  the  student  to  his  book;  and  no  one  been  any 
the  wiser  of  the  loss.  There  are  not  many  works  extant, 
if  you  look  the  alternative  all  over,  which  are  worth  the 
price  of  a  pound  of  tobacco  to  a  man  of  limited  means. 
This  is  a  sobering  reflection  for  the  proudest  of  our  earthly 
vanities.  Even  a  tobacconist  may,  upon  consideration, 
find  no  great  cause  for  personal  vainglory  in  the  phrase; 
for,  although  tobacco  is  an  admirable  sedative,  the  quali- 


AN  APOLOGY  FOR  IDLERS  283 

ties  necessary  for  retailing  it  are  neither  rare  nor  precious 
in  themselves.  Alas  and  alas !  you  may  take  it  how  you 
will,  but  the  services  of  no  single  individual  are  indispen- 
sable. Atlas  was  just  a  gentleman  with  a  protracted 
nightmare !  And  yet  you  see  merchants  who  go  and  labor 
themselves  into  a  great  fortune  and  thence  into  the  bank- 
ruptcy court;  scribblers  who  keep  scribbling  at  little  ar- 
ticles until  their  temper  is  a  cross  to  all  who  come  about 
them,  as  though  Pharaoh  should  set  the  Israelites  to  make 
a  pin  instead  of  a  pyramid ;  and  fine  young  men  who  work 
themselves  into  a  decline,  and  are  driven  off  in  a  hearse 
with  white  plumes  upon  it.  Would  you  not  suppose  these 
persons  had  been  whispered,  by  the  Master  of  the  Cere- 
monies, the  promise  of  some  momentous  destiny;  and  that 
this  lukewarm  bullet  on  which  they  play  their  farces  was 
the  bull's-eye  and  centre  point  of  all  the  universe?  And 
yet  it  is  not  so.  The  ends  for  which  they  give  away  their 
priceless  youth,  for  all  they  know,  may  be  chimerical  or 
hurtful;  the  glory  and  riches  they  expect  may  never  cbme, 
or  may  find  them  indifferent;  and  they  and  the  world 
they  inhabit  are  so  inconsiderable  that  the  mind  freezes 
at  the  thought. 


XIX 

CRABBED  AGE  AND  YOUTH  ^ 

ROBERT  LOUIS  STEVENSON 

"  You  know  my  mother  now  and  then  argues  very  notably;  always 
very  warmly  at  least.  I  happen  often  to  dijfer  jrom  her;  and  we  both 
think  so  well  of  our  own  arguments,  that  we  very  seldom  are  so  happy 
as  to  convince  one  another.  A  pretty  common  case,  I  believe,  in  all 
vehement  debatings.  She  says,  I  am  too  witty;  Anglice,  too  pert; 
/,  that  she  is  too  wise;  that  is  to  say,  being  likewise  put  into  English, 
not  so  young  as  she  has  been." 

— Miss  Howe  to  Miss  Harlowe,  Clarissa  (vol.  ii,  Letter  xiii). 

There  is  a  strong  feeling  in  favor  of  cowardly  and  pru- 
dential proverbs.  The  sentiments  of  a  man  while  he  is 
full  of  ardor  and  hope  are  to  be  received,  it  is  supposed, 
with  some  qualification.  But  when  the  same  person  has 
ignominiously  failed  and  begins  to  eat  up  his  words,  he 
should  be  listened  to  like  an  oracle.  Most  of  our  pocket 
wisdom  is  conceived  for  the  use  of  mediocre  people,  to 
discourage  them  from  ambitious  attempts,  and  generally 
console  them  in  their  mediocrity.  And  since  mediocre 
people  constitute  the  bulk  of  humanity,  this  is  no  doubt 
very  properly  so.  But  it  does  not  follow  that  the  one 
sort  of  proposition  is  any  less  true  than  the  other,  or  that 
Icarus  is  not  to  be  more  praised,  and  perhaps  more  en- 
vied, than  Mr.  Samuel  Budgett,  the  Successful  Merchant. 
The  one  is  dead,  to  be  sure,  while  the  other  is  still  in  his 
counting-house  counting  out  his  money;  and  doubtless 
this  is  a  consideration.     But  we  have,  on  the  other  hand, 

*  Reprinted  from  Virginibus  Puerisque. 
284 


CRABBED  AGE  AND  YOUTH      285 

some  bold  and  magnanimous  sayings  common  to  high 
races  and  natures,  which  set  forth  the  advantage  of  the 
losing  side,  and  proclaim  it  better  to  be  a  dead  lion  than 
a  living  dog.  It  is  diflScult  to  fancy  how  the  mediocrities 
reconcile  such  sayings  with  their  proverbs.  According  to 
the  latter,  every  lad  who  goes  to  sea  is  an  egregious  ass; 
never  to  forget  your  umbrella  through  a  long  life  would 
seem  a  higher  and  wiser  flight  of  achievement  than  to  go 
smiling  to  the  stake;  and  so  long  as  you  are  a  bit  of  a 
coward  and  inflexible  in  money  matters,  you  fulfil  the 
whole  duty  of  man. 

It  is  a  still  more  difficult  consideration  for  our  average 
men,  that  while  all  their  teachers,  from  Solomon  down  to 
Benjamin  Franklin  and  the  ungodly  Binney,  have  incul- 
cated the  same  ideal  of  manners,  caution,  and  respect- 
ability, those  characters  in  history  who  have  most  notori- 
ously flown  in  the  face  of  such  precepts  are  spoken  of  in 
hyperbolical  terms  of  praise,  and  honored  with  public 
monuments  in  the  streets  of  our  commercial  centres.  This 
is  very  bewildering  to  the  moral  sense.  You  have  Joan 
of  Arc,  who  left  a  humble  but  honest  and  reputable  live- 
hhood  under  the  eyes  of  her  parents  to  go  a-colonelling,  in 
the  company  of  rowdy  soldiers,  against  the  enemies  of 
France;  surely  a  melancholy  example  for  one's  daughters! 
And  then  you  have  Columbus,  who  may  have  pioneered 
America,  but,  when  all  is  said,  was  a  most  imprudent 
navigator.  His  life  is  not  the  kind  of  thing  one  would 
like  to  put  into  the  hands  of  young  people;  rather,  one 
would  do  one's  utmost  to  keep  it  from  their  knowledge, 
as  a  red  flag  of  adventure  and  disintegrating  influence  in 
life.  The  time  would  fail  me  if  I  were  to  recite  all  the 
big  names  in  history  whose  exploits  are  perfectly  irrational 
and  even  shocking  to  the  business  mind.     The  incongruity 


286  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

is  speaking;  and  I  imagine  it  must  engender  among  the 
mediocrities  a  very  peculiar  attitude  toward  the  nobler 
and  showier  sides  of  national  life.  They  will  read  of  the 
Charge  of  Balaclava  in  much  the  same  spirit  as  they  as- 
sist at  a  performance  of  the  Lyons  Mail.  Persons  of  sub- 
stance take  in  the  Times  and  sit  composedly  in  pit  or 
boxes  according  to  the  degree  of  their  prosperity  in  busi- 
ness. As  for  the  generals  who  go  galloping  up  and  down 
among  bombshells  in  absurd  cocked  hats — as  for  the  ac- 
tors who  raddle  their  faces  and  demean  themselves  for 
hire  upon  the  stage — they  must  belong,  thank  God !  to  a 
different  order  of  beings,  whom  we  watch  as  we  watch 
the  clouds  careering  in  the  windy,  bottomless  inane,  or 
read  about  like  characters  in  ancient  and  rather  fabulous 
annals.  Our  offspring  would  no  more  think  of  copying 
their  behavior,  let  us  hope,  than  of  doffing  their  clothes 
and  painting  themselves  blue  in  consequence  of  certain 
admissions  in  the  first  chapter  of  their  school  history  of 
England. 

Discredited  as  they  are  in  practise,  the  cowardly  prov- 
erbs hold  their  own  in  theory;  and  it  is  another  instance 
of  the  same  spirit,  that  the  opinions  of  old  men  about 
life  have  been  accepted  as  final.  All  sorts  of  allowances 
are  made  for  the  illusions  of  youth;  and  none,  or  almost 
none,  for  the  disenchantments  of  age.  It  is  held  to  be  a 
good  taunt,  and  somehow  or  other  to  clinch  the  question 
logically,  when  an  old  gentleman  waggles  his  head  and  says : 
"Ah,  so  I  thought  when  I  was  your  age."  It  is  not  thought 
an  answer  at  all,  if  the  young  man  retorts:  "My  venerable 
sir,  so  I  shall  most  probably  think  when  I  am  yours."  And 
yet  the  one  is  as  good  as  the  other:  pass  for  pass,  tit  for 
tat,  a  Roland  for  an  Oliver. 

"Opinion  in  good  men,"  says  Milton,  "is  but  knowledge 


CRABBED  AGE  AND  YOUTH      287 

in  the  making."  All  opinions,  properly  so  called,  are 
stages  on  the  road  to  truth.  It  does  not  follow  that  a 
man  will  travel  any  further;  but  if  he  has  really  consid- 
ered the  world  and  drawn  a  conclusion,  he  has  travelled 
as  far.  This  does  not  apply  to  formulae  got  by  rote,  which 
are  stages  on  the  road  to  nowhere  but  second  childhood 
and  the  grave.  To  have  a  catchword  in  your  mouth  is 
not  the  same  thing  as  to  hold  an  opinion;  still  less  is  it 
the  same  thing  as  to  have  made  one  for  yourself.  There 
are  too  many  of  these  catchwords  in  the  world  for  people 
to  rap  out  upon  you  like  an  oath  and  by  way  of  an  argu- 
ment. They  have  a  currency  as  intellectual  counters; 
and  many  respectable  persons  pay  their  way  with  noth- 
ing else.  They  seem  to  stand  for  vague  bodies  of  theory 
in  the  background.  The  imputed  virtue  of  folios  full  of 
knock-down  arguments  is  supposed  to  reside  in  them,  just 
as  some  of  the  majesty  of  the  British  Empire  dwells  in 
the  constable's  truncheon.  They  are  used  in  pure  super- 
stition, as  old  clodhoppers  spoil  Latin  by  way  of  an  exor- 
cism. And  yet  they  are  vastly  serviceable  for  checking 
unprofitable  discussion  and  stopping  the  mouths  of  babes 
and  sucklings.  And  when  a  young  man  comes  to  a  cer- 
tain stage  of  intellectual  growth,  the  examination  of  these 
counters  forms  a  gymnastic  at  once  amusing  and  fortify- 
ing to  the  mind. 

Because  I  have  reached  Paris,  I  am  not  ashamed  of 
having  passed  through  Newhaven  and  Dieppe.  They  were 
very  good  places  to  pass  through,  and  I  am  none  the  less 
at  my  destination.  All  my  old  opinions  were  only  stages 
on  the  way  to  the  one  I  now  hold,  as  itself  is  only  a  stage 
on  the  way  to  something  else.  I  am  no  more  abashed 
at  having  been  a  red-hot  Socialist  with  a  panacea  of  my 
own  than  at  having  been  a  sucking  infant.     Doubtless  the 


288  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

world  is  quite  right  in  a  million  ways;  but  you  have  to 
be  kicked  about  a  little  to  convince  you  of  the  fact.  And 
in  the  meanwhile  you  must  do  something,  be  something, 
believe  something.  It  is  not  possible  to  keep  the  mind 
in  a  state  of  accurate  balance  and  blank;  and  even  if  you 
could  do  so,  instead  of  coming  ultimately  to  the  right  con- 
clusion, you  would  be  very  apt  to  remain  in  a  state  of 
balance  and  blank  to  perpetuity.  Even  in  quite  interme- 
diate stages,  a  dash  of  enthusiasm  is  not  a  thing  to  be 
ashamed  of  in  the  retrospect:  if  St.  Paul  had  not  been  a 
very  zealous  Pharisee,  he  would  have  been  a  colder  Chris- 
tian. For  my  part,  I  look  back  to  the  time  when  I  was 
a  Socialist  with  something  like  regret.  I  have  convinced 
myself  (for  the  moment)  that  we  had  better  leave  these 
great  changes  to  what  we  call  great  blind  forces;  their 
blindness  being  so  much  more  perspicacious  than  the  little, 
peering,  partial  eyesight  of  men.  I  seem  to  see  that  my 
own  scheme  would  not  answer;  and  all  the  other  schemes 
I  ever  heard  propounded  would  depress  some  elements  of 
goodness  just  as  much  as  they  encouraged  others.  Now 
I  know  that  in  thus  turning  Conservative  with  years,  I 
am  going  through  the  normal  cycle  of  change  and  travel- 
ling in  the  common  orbit  of  men's  opinions.  I  submit  to 
this,  as  I  would  submit  to  gout  or  gray  hair,  as  a  concomi- 
tant of  growing  age  or  else  of  faiUng  animal  heat;  but  I 
do  not  acknowledge  that  it  is  necessarily  a  change  for  the 
better — I  dare  say  it  is  deplorably  for  the  worse.  I  have 
no  choice  in  the  business,  and  can  no  more  resist  this 
tendency  of  my  mind  than  I  could  prevent  my  body  from 
beginning  to  totter  and  decay.  If  I  am  spared  (as  the 
phrase  runs)  I  shall  doubtless  outlive  some  troublesome 
desires;  but  I  am  in  no  hurry  about  that;  nor,  when  the 
time  comes,  shall  I  plume  myself  on  the  immunity.    Just 


CRABBED  AGE  AND  YOUTH      289 

in  the  same  way,  I  do  not  greatly  pride  myself  on  having 
outlived  my  belief  in  the  fairy-tales  of  Socialism.  Old 
people  have  faults  of  their  own;  they  tend  to  become 
cowardly,  niggardly,  and  suspicious.  Whether  from  the 
growth  of  experience  or  the  dechne  of  animal  heat,  I  see 
that  age  leads  to  these  and  certain  other  faults;  and  it 
follows,  of  course,  that  while  in  one  sense  I  hope  I  am 
journeying  toward  the  truth,  in  another  I  am  indubitably 
posting  toward  these  forms  and  sources  of  error. 

As  we  go  catching  and  catching  at  this  or  that  corner 
of  knowledge,  now  getting  a  foresight  of  generous  possi- 
bilities, now  chilled  with  a  glimpse  of  prudence,  we  may 
compare  the  headlong  course  of  our  years  to  a  swift  tor- 
rent in  which  a  man  is  carried  away;  now  he  is  dashed 
against  a  bowlder,  now  he  grapples  for  a  moment  to  a 
trailing  spray;  at  the  end,  he  is  hurled  out  and  over- 
whelmed in  a  dark  and  bottomless  ocean.  We  have  no 
more  than  glimpses  and  touches;  we  are  torn  away  from 
our  theories;  we  are  spun  round  and  round  and  shown 
this  or  the  other  view  of  life,  until  only  fools  or  knaves 
can  hold  to  their  opinions.  We  take  a  sight  at  a  condi- 
tion in  life,  and  say  we  have  studied  it;  our  most  elabo- 
rate view  is  no  more  than  an  impression.  If  we  had  breath- 
ing space,  we  should  take  the  occasion  to  modify  and 
adjust;  but  at  this  breakneck  hurry  we  are  no  sooner  boys 
than  we  are  adult,  no  sooner  in  love  than  married  or 
jilted,  no  sooner  one  age  than  we  begin  to  be  another, 
and  no  sooner  in  the  fulness  of  our  manhood  than  we  begin 
to  decline  toward  the  grave.  It  is  in  vain  to  seek  for 
consistency  or  expect  clear  and  stable  views  in  a  medium 
so  perturbed  and  fleeting.  This  is  no  cabinet  science,  in 
which  things  are  tested  to  a  scruple;  we  theorize  with  a 
pistol  to  our  head;   we  are  confronted  with  a  new  set  of 


290  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

conditions  on  which  we  have  not  only  to  pass  a  judg- 
ment, but  to  take  action,  before  the  hour  is  at  an  end. 
And  we  cannot  even  regard  ourselves  as  a  constant;  in 
this  flux  of  things,  our  identity  itself  seems  in  a  perpetual 
variation;  and  not  infrequently  we  find  our  own  disguise 
the  strangest  in  the  masquerade.  In  the  course  of  time, 
we  grow  to  love  things  we  hated  and  hate  things  we  loved. 
Milton  is  not  so  dull  as  he  once  was,  nor  perhaps  Ains- 
worth  so  amusing.  It  is  decidedly  harder  to  climb  trees, 
and  not  nearly  so  hard  to  sit  still.  There  is  no  use  pre- 
tending; even  the  thrice  royal  game  of  hide-and-seek  has 
somehow  lost  in  zest.  All  our  attributes  are  modified  or 
changed,  and  it  will  be  a  poor  account  of  us  if  our  views 
do  not  modify  and  change  in  a  proportion.  To  hold  the 
same  views  at  forty  as  we  held  at  twenty  is  to  have  been 
stupefied  for  a  score  of  years,  and  take  rank,  not  as  a 
prophet,  but  as  an  unteachable  brat,  well  birched  and 
none  the  wiser.  It  is  as  if  a  ship  captain  should  sail  to 
India  from  the  Port  of  London;  and  having  brought  a 
chart  of  the  Thames  on  deck  at  his  first  setting  out,  should 
obstinately  use  no  other  for  the  whole  voyage. 

And  mark  you,  it  would  be  no  less  foolish  to  begin  at 
Gravesend  with  a  chart  of  the  Red  Sea.  Si  Jeunesse 
savait,  si  Vieillesse  pouvait,  is  a  very  pretty  sentiment, 
but  not  necessarily  right.  In  five  cases  out  of  ten,  it  is 
not  so  much  that  the  young  people  do  not  know,  as  that 
they  do  not  choose.  There  is  something  irreverent  in  the 
speculation,  but  perhaps  the  want  of  power  has  more  to 
do  with  the  wise  resolutions  of  age  than  we  are  always 
willing  to  admit.  It  would  be  an  instructive  experiment 
to  make  an  old  man  young  again  and  leave  him  all  his 
savoir.  I  scarcely  think  he  would  put  his  money  in  the 
Savings  Bank  after  all;    I  doubt  if  he  would  be  such  an 


CRABBED  AGE  AND  YOUTH      291 

admirable  son  as  we  are  led  to  expect;  and  as  for  his 
conduct  in  love,  I  believe  firmly  he  would  out-Herod 
Herod,  and  put  the  whole  of  his  new  compeers  to  the 
blush.  Prudence  is  a  wooden  Juggernaut,  before  whom 
Benjamin  Franklin  walks  with  the  portly  air  of  a  high 
priest,  and  after  whom  dances  many  a  successful  mer- 
chant in  the  character  of  Atys.  But  it  is  not  a  deity  to 
cultivate  in  youth.  If  a  man  lives  to  any  considerable 
age,  it  cannot  be  denied  that  he  laments  his  imprudences, 
but  I  notice  he  often  laments  his  youth  a  deal  more  bit- 
terly and  with  a  more  genuine  intonation. 

It  is  customary  to  say  that  age  should  be  considered, 
because  it  comes  last.  It  seems  just  as  much  to  the  point, 
that  youth  comes  first.  And  the  scale  fairly  kicks  the 
beam,  if  you  go  on  to  add  that  age,  in  a  majority  of  cases, 
never  comes  at  all.  Disease  and  accident  make  short  work 
of  even  the  most  prosperous  persons;  death  costs  nothing, 
and  the  expense  of  a  headstone  is  an  inconsiderable  trifle 
to  the  happy  heir.  To  be  suddenly  snuffed  out  in  the 
middle  of  ambitious  schemes  is  tragical  enough  at  best; 
but  when  a  man  has  been  grudging  himself  his  own  life 
in  the  meanwhile,  and  saving  up  everything  for  the  fes- 
tival that  was  never  to  be,  it  becomes  that  hysterically 
moving  sort  of  tragedy  which  lies  on  the  confines  of  farce. 
The  victim  is  dead — and  he  has  cunningly  overreached 
himself:  a  combination  of  calamities  none  the  less  absurd 
for  being  grim.  To  husband  a  favorite  claret  until  the 
batch  turns  sour  is  not  at  all  an  artful  stroke  of  policy; 
and  how  much  more  with  a  whole  cellar — a  whole  bodily 
existence !  People  may  lay  down  their  lives  with  cheer- 
fulness in  the  sure  expectation  of  a  blessed  immortality; 
but  that  is  a  different  affair  from  giving  up  youth  with 
all  its  admirable  pleasures,  in  the  hope  of  a  better  quality 


292  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

of  gruel  in  a  more  than  problematical,  nay,  more  than 
improbable,  old  age.  We  should  not  compliment  a  hun- 
gry man,  who  should  refuse  a  whole  dinner  and  reserve 
all  his  appetite  for  the  dessert,  before  he  knew  whether 
there  was  to  be  any  dessert  or  not.  If  there  be  such  a 
thing  as  imprudence  in  the  world,  we  surely  have  it  here. 
We  sail  in  leaky  bottoms  and  on  great  and  perilous  waters; 
and  to  take  a  cue  from  the  dolorous  old  naval  ballad,  we 
have  heard  the  mermaidens  singing,  and  know  that  we 
shall  never  see  dry  land  any  more.  Old  and  young,  we 
are  all  on  our  last  cruise.  If  there  is  a  fill  of  tobacco 
among  the  crew,  for  God's  sake  pass  it  round,  and  let  us 
have  a  pipe  before  we  go ! 

Indeed,  by  the  report  of  our  elders,  this  nervous  prep- 
aration for  old  age  is  only  trouble  thrown  away.  We 
fall  on  guard,  and  after  all  it  is  a  friend  who  comes  to 
meet  us.  After  the  sun  is  down  and  the  west  faded,  the 
heavens  begin  to  fill  with  shining  stars.  So,  as  we  grow 
old,  a  sort  of  equable  jog-trot  of  feeling  is  substituted  for 
the  violent  ups  and  downs  of  passion  and  disgust;  the 
same  influence  that  restrains  our  hopes,  quiets  our  appre- 
hensions; if  the  pleasures  are  less  intense,  the  troubles 
are  milder  and  more  tolerable ;  and,  in  a  word,  this  period 
for  which  we  are  asked  to  hoard  up  everything  as  for  a 
time  of  famine,  is,  in  its  own  right,  the  richest,  easiest, 
and  happiest  of  life.  Nay,  by  managing  its  own  work  and 
following  its  own  happy  inspiration,  youth  is  doing  the 
best  it  can  to  endow  the  leisure  of  age.  A  full,  busy 
youth  is  your  only  prelude  to  a  self-contained  and  inde- 
pendent age;  and  the  muff  inevitably  develops  into  the 
bore.  There  are  not  many  Dr.  Johnsons  to  set  forth 
upon  their  first  romantic  voyage  at  sixty-four.  If  we  wish 
to  scale  Mont  Blanc  or  visit  a  thieves'  kitchen  in  the  East 


CRABBED  AGE  AND  YOUTH      293 

End,  to  go  down  in  a  diving-dress  or  up  in  a  balloon,  we 
must  be  about  it  while  we  are  still  young.  It  will  not  do 
to  delay  until  we  are  clogged  with  prudence  and  limping 
with  rheumatism,  and  people  begin  to  ask  us:  *'What 
does  Gravity  out  of  bed  ?  "  Youth  is  the  time  to  go  flash- 
ing from  one  end  of  the  world  to  the  other  both  in  mind 
and  body;  to  try  the  manners  of  different  nations;  to 
hear  the  chimes  at  midnight;  to  see  sunrise  in  town  and 
country;  to  be  converted  at  a  revival;  to  circumnavigate 
the  metaphysics,  write  halting  verses,  run  a  mile  to  see  a 
fire,  and  wait  all  day  long  in  the  theatre  to  applaud  Her- 
nani.  There  is  some  meaning  in  the  old  theory  about 
wild  oats;  and  a  man  who  has  not  had  his  green-sickness, 
and  got  done  with  it  for  good,  is  as  little  to  be  depended 
on  as  an  unvaccinated  infant.  "It  is  extraordinary,"  says 
Lord  Beaconsfield,  one  of  the  brightest  and  best  preserved 
of  youths  up  to  the  date  of  his  last  noveV  "it  is  extraor- 
dinary how  hourly  and  how  violently  change  the  feelings 
of  an  inexperienced  young  man."  And  this  mobility  is  a 
special  talent  intrusted  to  his  care;  a  sort  of  indestruc- 
tible virginity;  a  magic  armor,  with  which  he  can  pass 
unhurt  through  great  dangers  and  come  unbedaubed  out 
of  the  miriest  passages.  Let  him  voyage,  speculate,  see 
all  that  he  can,  do  all  that  he  may;  his  soul  has  as  many 
lives  as  a  cat,  he  will  live  in  all  weathers,  and  never  be 
a  halfpenny  the  worse.  Those  who  go  to  the  devil  in 
youth,  with  anything  like  a  fair  chance,  were  probably 
little  worth  saving  from  the  first;  they  must  have  been 
feeble  fellows — creatures  made  of  putty  and  pack-thread, 
without  steel  or  fire,  anger  or  true  joyfulness  in  their 
composition;  we  may  sympathize  with  their  parents,  but 
there  is  not  much  cause  to  go  into  mourning  for  themselves; 

*  Lothair. 


294     COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

for,  to  be  quite  honest,  the  weak  brother  is  the  worst  of 
mankind. 

When  the  old  man  waggles  his  head  and  says,  "Ah,  so 
I  thought  when  I  was  your  age,"  he  has  proved  the  youth's 
case.  Doubtless,  whether  from  growth  of  experience  or 
decline  of  animal  heat,  he  thinks  so  no  longer;  but  he 
thought  so  while  he  was  young;  and  all  men  have  thought 
so  while  they  were  young,  since  there  was  dew  in  the 
morning  or  hawthorn  in  May;  and  here  is  another  young 
man  adding  his  vote  to  those  of  previous  generations  and 
riveting  another  link  to  the  chain  of  testimony.  It  is  as 
natural  and  as  right  for  a  young  man  to  be  imprudent 
and  exaggerated,  to  live  in  swoops  and  circles,  and  beat 
about  his  cage  like  any  other  wild  thing  newly  captured, 
as  it  is  for  old  men  to  turn  gray,  or  mothers  to  love  their 
offspring,  or  heroes  to  die  for  something  worthier  than 
their  lives. 

By  way  of  an  apologue  for  the  aged,  when  they  f^el 
more  than  usually  tempted  to  offer  their  advice,  let  me 
recommend  the  following  little  tale.  A  child  who  had 
been  remarkably  fond  of  toys  (and  in  particular  of  lead 
soldiers)  found  himself  growing  to  the  level  of  acknowl- 
edged boyhood  without  any  abatement  of  this  childish 
taste.  He  was  thirteen;  already  he  had  been  taunted  for 
dallying  overlong  about  the  play  box;  he  had  to  blush  if 
he  was  found  among  his  lead  soldiers;  the  shades  of  the 
prison-house  were  closing  about  him  with  a  vengeance. 
There  is  nothing  more  difficult  than  to  put  the  thoughts 
of  children  into  the  language  of  their  elders;  but  this  is 
the  effect  of  his  meditations  at  this  juncture:  "Plainly," 
he  said,  "I  must  give  up  my  playthings,  in  the  meanwhile, 
since  I  am  not  in  a  position  to  secure  myself  against  idle 
jeers.    At  the  same  time,  I  am  sure  that  playthings  are 


CRABBED  AGE  AND  YOUTH      295 

the  very  pick  of  life;  all  people  give  them  up  out  of  the 
same  pusillanimous  respect  for  those  who  are  a  little  older; 
and  if  they  do  not  return  to  them  as  soon  as  they  can, 
it  is  only  because  they  grow  stupid  and  forget.  I  shall 
be  wiser;  I  shall  conform  for  a  little  to  the  ways  of  their 
foolish  world;  but  so  soon  as  I  have  made  enough  money, 
I  shall  retire  and  shut  myself  up  among  my  playthings 
until  the  day  I  die."  Nay,  as  he  was  passing  in  the  train 
along  the  Esterel  Mountains  between  Cannes  and  Frejus, 
he  remarked  a  pretty  house  in  an  orange  garden  at  the 
angle  of  a  bay,  and  decided  that  this  should  be  his  Happy 
Valley.  Astrea  Redux;  childhood  was  to  come  again! 
The  idea  has  an  air  of  simple  nobility  to  me,  not  unworthy 
of  Cincinnatus.  And  yet,  as  the  reader  has  probably  an- 
ticipated, it  is  never  likely  to  be  carried  into  effect.  There 
was  a  worm  in  the  bud,  a  fatal  error  in  the  premises.  Child- 
hood must  pass  away,  and  then  youth,  as  surely  as  age 
approaches.  The  true  wisdom  is  to  be  always  seasonable, 
and  to  change  with  a  good  grace  in  changing  circumstances. 
To  love  playthings  well  as  a  child,  to  lead  an  adventurous 
and  honorable  youth,  and  to  settle,  when  the  time  arrives, 
into  a  green  and  smiling  age,  is  to  be  a  good  artist  in  life 
and  deserve  well  of  yourself  and  your  neighbor. 

You  need  repent  none  of  your  youthful  vagaries.  They 
may  have  been  over  the  score  on  one  side,  just  as  those 
of  age  are  probably  over  the  score  on  the  other.  But  they 
had  a  point;  they  not  only  befitted  your  age  and  expressed 
its  attitude  and  passions,  but  they  had  a  relation  to  what 
was  outside  of  you,  and  implied  criticisms  on  the  existing 
state  of  things,  which  you  need  not  allow  to  have  been 
undeserved,  because  you  now  see  that  they  were  partial. 
All  error,  not  merely  verbal,  is  a  strong  way  of  stating 
that  the  current  truth  is  incomplete.     The  follies  of  youth 


296  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

have  a  basis  in  sound  reason,  just  as  much  as  the  embar- 
rassing questions  put  by  babes  and  sucklings.  Their  most 
antisocial  acts  indicate  the  defects  of  our  society.  When 
the  torrent  sweeps  the  man  against  a  bowlder,  you  must 
expect  him  to  scream,  and  you  need  not  be  surprised  if 
the  scream  is  sometimes  a  theory.  Shelley,  chafing  at  the 
Church  of  England,  discovered  the  cure  of  all  evils  in 
universal  atheism.  Generous  lads,  irritated  at  the  injus- 
tices of  society,  see  nothing  for  it  but  the  abolishment  of 
everything  and  Kingdom  Come  of  anarchy.  Shelley  was 
a  young  fool;  so  are  these  cock-sparrow  revolutionaries. 
But  it  is  better  to  be  a  fool  than  to  be  dead.  It  is  better 
to  emit  a  scream  in  the  shape  of  a  theory  than  to  be  en- 
tirely insensible  to  the  jars  and  incongruities  of  life  and 
take  everything  as  it  comes  in  a  forlorn  stupidity.  Some 
people  swallow  the  universe  like  a  pill;  they  travel  on 
through  the  world,  like  smiling  images  pushed  from  be- 
hind. For  God's  sake  give  me  the  young  man  who  has 
brains  enough  to  make  a  fool  of  himself !  As  for  the 
others,  the  irony  of  facts  shall  take  it  out  of  their  hands, 
and  make  fools  of  them  in  downright  earnest,  ere  the 
farce  be  over.  There  shall  be  such  a  mopping  and  a  mow- 
ing at  the  last  day,  and  such  blushing  and  confusion  of 
countenance  for  all  those  who  have  been  wise  in  their  own 
esteem,  and  have  not  learnt  the  rough  lessons  that  youth 
hands  on  to  age.  If  we  are  indeed  here  to  perfect  and 
complete  our  own  natures,  and  grow  larger,  stronger,  and 
more  sympathetic  against  some  nobler  career  in  the  future, 
we  had  all  best  bestir  ourselves  to  the  utmost  while  we 
have  the  time.  To  equip  a  dull,  respectable  person  with 
wings  would  be  but  to  make  a  parody  of  an  angel. 

In  short,  if  youth  is  not  quite  right  in  its  opinions, 
there  is  a  strong  probability  that  age  is  not  much  more 


CRABBED  AGE  AND  YOUTH      297 

so.  Undying  hope  is  co-ruler  of  the  human  bosom  with 
infallible  credulity.  A  man  finds  he  has  been  wrong  at 
every  preceding  stage  of  his  career,  only  to  deduce  the 
astonishing  conclusion  that  he  is  at  last  entirely  right. 
Mankind,  after  centuries  of  failure,  are  still  upon  the  eve 
of  a  thoroughly  constitutional  millennium.  Since  we  have 
explored  the  maze  so  long  without  result,  it  follows,  for 
poor  human  reason,  that  we  cannot  have  to  explore  much 
longer;  close  by  must  be  the  centre,  with  a  champagne 
luncheon  and  a  piece  of  ornamental  water.  How  if  there 
were  no  centre  at  all,  but  just  one  alley  after  another,  and 
the  whole  world  a  labyrinth  without  end  or  issue? 

I  overheard  the  other  day  a  scrap  of  conversation,  which 
I  take  the  liberty  to  reproduce.  "What  I  advance  is 
true,"  said  one.  "But  not  the  whole  truth,"  answered 
the  other.  "Sir,"  returned  the  first  (and  it  seemed  to 
me  there  was  a  smack  of  Dr.  Johnson  in  the  speech),  "Sir, 
there  is  no  such  thing  as  the  whole  truth !"  Indeed,  there 
is  nothing  so  evident  in  life  as  that  there  are  two  sides 
to  a  question.  History  is  one  long  illustration.  The  forces 
of  nature  are  engaged,  day  by  day,  in  cudgelling  it  into 
our  backward  intelligences.  We  never  pause  for  a  mo- 
ment's consideration,  but  we  admit  it  as  an  axiom.  An 
enthusiast  sways  humanity  exactly  by  disregarding  this 
great  truth,  and  dinning  it  into  our  ears  that  this  or  that 
question  has  only  one  possible  solution;  and  your  enthu- 
siast is  a  fine  florid  fellow,  dominates  things  for  a  while 
and  shakes  the  world  out  of  a  doze;  but  when  once  he  is 
gone,  an  army  of  quiet  and  uninfluential  people  set  to 
work  to  remind  us  of  the  other  side  and  demolish  the 
generous  imposture.  While  Calvin  is  putting  everybody 
exactly  right  in  his  Institutes,  and  hot-headed  Knox  is 
thundering  in  the  pulpit,  Montaigne  is  already  looking  at 


298  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

the  other  side  in  his  library  in  Perigord,  and  predicting 
that  they  will  find  as  much  to  quarrel  about  in  the  Bible 
as  they  had  found  already  in  the  church.  Age  may  have 
one  side,  but  assuredly  youth  has  the  other.  There  is 
nothing  more  certain  than  that  both  are  right,  except 
perhaps  that  both  are  wrong.  Let  them  agree  to  differ; 
for  who  knows  but  what  agreeing  to  differ  may  not  be  a 
form  of  agreement  rather  than  a  form  of  difference! 

I  suppose  it  is  written  that  any  one  who  sets  up  for  a 
bit  of  a  philosopher  must  contradict  himself  to  his  very 
face.  For  here  have  I  fairly  talked  myself  into  thinking 
that  we  have  the  whole  thing  before  us  at  last;  that 
there  is  no  answer  to  the  mystery,  except  that  there  are 
as  many  as  you  please;  that  there  is  no  centre  to  the 
maze  because,  like  the  famous  sphere,  its  centre  is  every- 
where; and  that  agreeing  to  differ  with  every  ceremony 
of  politeness  is  the  only  "one  undisturbed  song  of  pure 
consent"  to  which  we  are  ever  likely  to  lend  our  musical 
voices. 


XX 

THINKING  FOR  YOURSELF^ 

The  president  of  Magdalen,  when  giving  away  the 
prizes  at  Magdalen  College  School  the  other  day,  said 
that,  whereas  our  public  schools  teach  boys  to  act  for 
themselves,  they  do  not  so  well  teach  them  to  think  for 
themselves.  The  distinction  here  is  a  very  clear  one,  but 
it  is  often  overlooked  in  England.  We  are  apt  to  assume 
that  a  man  who  can  act  for  himself  in  an  emergency  must 
be  able  also  to  think  for  himself;  and  yet  that  very  man, 
who  is  never  perturbed  by  a  sudden  danger,  may  in  the 
quiet  processes  of  his  mind  be  constantly  overawed  by 
platitude.  It  is  the  combination  of  boldness  in  thought 
and  in  action  that  makes  a  great  man,  and  great  men 
are  rare  because  that  combination  is  so  rare.  Without 
contemplative  energy,  energy  in  action  has  no  cumulative 
power;  it  avails  for  each  particular  emergency,  but  for 
that  alone.  The  man  of  action,  who  is  nothing  more, 
rises  to  the  occasion  when  he  has  to  do  anything  out  of 
the  common;  but  when  he  has  done  it  he  sinks  back  into 
commonplace,  and  his  mind  rests  there  contented  as  if 
there  were  nothing  of  importance  in  life  except  sudden 
action.  We  all  know  that  men  of  original  thought  are 
often  quite  unfitted  for  action;  indeed,  the  dreamy  phi- 
losopher is  a  byword  for  his  want  of  practical  ability,  and 

•  Reprinted  from  The  Times  (London),  October  28,  1913,  through  the 
courtesy  of  the  editors. 

899 


300  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

people  wonder  that  a  man  who  can  think  so  vigorously 
should  act  so  feebly.  We  are  not  aware  that  the  man  of 
action  often  fails  just  as  much  in  thought,  only  because 
we  admire  him  so  much  that  we  do  not  notice  his  defects. 

We  admire  the  man  who  thinks  for  himself  very  much 
less,  but  that  is  partly  because  we  are  apt  not  to  recognize 
him  when  we  meet  him.  There  are  many  people  who  go 
about  saying  that  they  think  for  themselves,  but  this 
generally  means  that  they  think  for  other  people.  They 
will  make  rules  for  the  conduct  of  the  whole  world;  they 
wUl  tell  us  of  a  number  of  things  that  we  ought  to  do  and 
which  we  should  do  if  our  natures  were  different;  they 
have  theories  about  every  conceivable  matter  which  is  out- 
side their  own  experience,  but  when  it  comes  to  learning 
from  their  own  experience  they  are  no  better  at  it  than 
the  rest  of  us.  And  yet  to  think  for  yourself  is  to  learn 
from  your  own  experience;  it  is  not  to  hold  a  number 
of  views  which  are  different  from  those  of  most  men. 
The  popular  views  on  most  subjects  may  be  wrong,  but 
to  assume  that  is  not  to  think  for  yourself;  it  is  merely 
to  accept  a  general  theory  because  it  is  amusing,  or  be- 
cause it  annoys,  or  because  it  gives  you  a  pleasant  sense 
of  superiority.  Indeed,  it  is  one  of  the  disadvantages  of 
thinking  for  yourself  that  you  cannot  accept  opinions 
either  because  they  are  popular  or  unpopular.  There  is 
a  delight  in  thinking  for  yourself,  but  you  win  it  by  a 
kind  of  asceticism  in  thought.  You  must  refrain  from 
embracing  a  theory  because  it  is  pretty;  indeed,  you  must 
be  as  shy  of  theories  as  an  eremite  is  of  women,  for  only 
by  that  restraint  will  your  mind  get  vigor  enough  to  recog- 
nize a  true  theory,  as  a  holy  eremite  could  recognize  an 
angel  at  first  sight. 

Thus  it  follows  that  to  teach  boys  to  think  for  them- 


THINKING  FOR  YOURSELF  301 

selves  is  something  very  different  from  teaching  them  to 
be  clever.  It  is  not  even  to  teach  them  to  question  every- 
thing, for  those  who  question  everything  are  like  jesting 
Pilate — they  do  not  stay  for  an  answer.  We  must  all  ac- 
cept a  great  many  common  opinions  on  trust,  especially 
when  we  are  young.  But  though  we  may  accept  them 
so  far  as  to  act  on  them,  it  is  important  that  we  should 
distinguish  between  them  and  the  opinions  that  are  really 
our  own,  and  education  can  teach  us  to  make  this  distinc- 
tion without  turning  us  into  cranks  or  prigs.  Its  common 
defect,  if  it  is  old-fashioned,  is  that  it  neglects  opinions 
altogether,  and,  if  it  is  new-fashioned,  that  it  teaches  them 
as  if  they  were  facts.  Its  proper  function  is  to  teach  the 
right  method  of  acquiring  them,  to  make  it  clear  that  no 
one  can  have  opinions  of  his  own  on  every  subject  under 
the  sun;  but  that  it  is  the  business  of  man,  as  a  thinking 
creature,  to  draw  conclusions  from  his  own  experience.  It 
is  only  by  doing  this  that  we  can  be  useful  in  thought  as 
well  as  action  and  add  to  the  world's  stock  of  wisdom. 
And  every  one  can  add  something  of  his  own  to  that  if 
he  will  be  content  to  think  for  himself  and  about  matters 
within  his  own  experience,  for  no  two  men  are  the  same 
either  in  themselves  or  in  their  circumstances;  and  life  is 
a  voyage  of  discovery  for  all,  in  spite,  or  rather  because, 
of  the  accumulated  knowledge  of  the  past. 


XXI 

THE  DISCOVERY  OF  THE  FUTURE  ^ 

H.   G.   WELLS 

It  will  lead  into  my  subject  most  conveniently  to  con- 
trast and  separate  two  divergent  types  of  mind,  types 
which  are  to  be  distinguished  chiefly  by  their  attitude 
toward  time,  and  more  particularly  by  the  relative  im- 
portance they  attach  and  the  relative  amount  of  thought 
they  give  to  the  future. 

The  first  of  these  two  types  of  mind,  and  it  is,  I  think, 
the  predominant  type,  the  type  of  the  majority  of  living 
people,  is  that  which  seems  scarcely  to  think  of  the  future 
at  all,  which  regards  it  as  a  sort  of  blank  non-existence 
upon  which  the  advancing  present  will  presently  write 
events.  The  second  type,  which  is,  I  think,  a  more  mod- 
ern and  much  less  abundant  t3^e  of  mind,  thinks  con- 
stantly and  by  preference  of  things  to  come,  and  of  pres- 
ent things  mainly  in  relation  to  the  results  that  must 
arise  from  them.  The  former  type  of  mind,  when  one 
gets  it  in  its  purity,  is  retrospective  in  habit,  and  it  in- 
terprets the  things  of  the  present,  and  gives  value  to  this 
and  denies  it  to  that,  entirely  with  relation  to  the  past. 
The  latter  type  of  mind  is  constructive  in  habit,  it  inter- 
prets the  things  of  the  present  and  gives  value  to  this  or 
that,  entirely  in  relation  to  things  designed  or  foreseen. 

'A  discourse  delivered  at  the  Royal  Institution.  Reprinted  through 
the  courtesy  of  H.  G.  Wells  and  of  B.  VV.  Huebsch. 

302 


THE  DISCOVERY  OF  THE  FUTURE       303 

While  from  that  former  point  of  view  our  life  is  simply 
to  reap  the  consequences  of  the  past,  from  this  our  life 
is  to  prepare  the  future.  The  former  type  one  might 
speak  of  as  the  legal  or  submissive  type  of  mind,  because 
the  business,  the  practise,  and  the  training  of  a  lawyer 
dispose  him  toward  it;  he  of  all  men  must  constantly 
refer  to  the  law  made,  the  right  established,  the  precedent 
set,  and  consistently  ignore  or  condemn  the  thing  that  is 
only  seeking  to  establish  itself.  The  latter  type  of  mind 
I  might  for  contrast  call  the  legislative,  creative,  organiz- 
ing, or  masterful  type,  because  it  is  perpetually  attacking 
and  altering  the  established  order  of  things,  perpetually 
falling  away  from  respect  for  what  the  past  has  given 
us.  It  sees  the  world  as  one  great  workshop,  and  the 
present  is  no  more  than  material  for  the  future,  for  the 
thing  that  is  yet  destined  to  be.  It  is  in  the  active  mood 
of  thought,  while  the  former  is  in  the  passive;  it  is  the 
mind  of  youth,  it  is  the  mind  more  manifest  among  the 
western  nations,  while  the  former  is  the  mind  of  age,  the 
mind  of  the  oriental. 

Things  have  been,  says  the  legal  mind,  and  so  we  are 
here.  The  creative  mind  says  we  are  here  because  things 
have  yet  to  be. 

Now  I  do  not  wish  to  suggest  that  the  great  mass  of 
people  belong  to  either  of  these  two  types.  Indeed,  I 
speak  of  them  as  two  distinct  and  distinguishable  types 
mainly  for  convenience  and  in  order  to  accentuate  their 
distinction.  There  are  probably  very  few  people  who 
brood  constantly  upon  the  past  without  any  thought  of 
the  future  at  all,  and  there  are  probably  scarcely  any  who 
live  and  think  consistently  in  relation  to  the  future.  The 
great  mass  of  people  occupy  an  intermediate  position  be- 
tween these  extremes,  they  pass  daily  and  hourly  from  the 


304  COLLEGE  AND   THE  FUTURE 

passive  mood  to  the  active,  they  see  this  thing  in  relation 
to  its  associations  and  that  thing  in  relation  to  its  conse- 
quences, and  they  do  not  even  suspect  that  they  are  using 
two  distinct  methods  in  their  minds. 

But  for  all  that  they  are  distinct  methods,  the  method 
of  reference  to  the  past  and  the  method  of  reference  to  the 
future,  and  their  mingling  in  many  of  our  minds  no  more 
abolishes  their  difference  than  the  existence  of  piebald 
horses  proves  that  white  is  black. 

I  believe  that  it  is  not  sufficiently  recognized  just  how 
different  in  their  consequences  these  two  methods  are,  and 
just  where  their  difference  and  where  the  failure  to  appre- 
ciate their  difference  takes  one.  This  present  time  is  a 
period  of  quite  extraordinary  uncertainty  and  indecision 
upon  endless  questions — moral  questions,  aesthetic  ques- 
tions, religious  and  political  questions — upon  which  we 
should  all  of  us  be  happier  to  feel  assured  and  settled; 
and  a  very  large  amount  of  this  floating  uncertainty  about 
these  important  matters  is  due  to  the  fact  that  with  most 
of  us  these  two  insufficiently  distinguished  ways  of  look- 
ing at  things  are  not  only  present  together,  but  in  actual 
conffict  in  our  minds,  in  unsuspected  conflict;  we  pass 
from  one  to  the  other  heedlessly  without  any  clear  recog- 
nition of  the  fundamental  difference  in  conclusions  that 
exists  between  the  two,  and  we  do  this  with  disastrous 
results  to  our  confidence  and  to  our  consistency  in  deal- 
ing with  all  sorts  of  things. 

But  before  pointing  out  how  divergent  these  two  t)rpes 
or  habits  of  mind  really  are,  it  is  necessary  to  meet  a  pos- 
sible objection  to  what  has  been  said.  I  may  put  that 
objection  in  this  form:  Is  not  this  distinction  between  a 
type  of  mind  that  thinks  of  the  past  and  a  t3T)e  of  mind 
that  thinks  of  the  future  a  sort  of  hair-splitting,  almost 


THE  DISCOVERY  OF  THE  FUTURE       305 

like  distinguishing  between  people  who  have  left  hands 
and  people  who  have  right?  Everybody  believes  that  the 
present  is  entirely  determined  by  the  past,  you  say;  but 
then  everybody  believes  also  that  the  present  determines 
the  future.  Are  we  simply  separating  and  contrasting 
two  sides  of  everybody's  opinion?  To  which  one  replies 
that  we  are  not  discussing  what  we  know  and  believe 
about  the  relations  of  past,  present,  and  future,  or  of  the 
relation  of  cause  and  effect  to  each  other  in  time.  We 
all  know  the  present  depends  for  its  causes  on  the  past, 
and  the  future  depends  for  its  causes  upon  the  present. 
But  this  discussion  concerns  the  way  in  which  we  ap- 
proach things  upon  this  common  ground  of  knowledge 
and  belief.  We  may  all  know  there  is  an  east  and  a 
west,  but  if  some  of  us  always  approach  and  look  at  things 
from  the  west,  if  some  of  us  always  approach  and  look  at 
things  from  the  east,  and  if  others  again  wander  about 
with  a  pretty  disregard  of  direction,  looking  at  things  as 
chance  determines,  some  of  us  will  get  to  a  westward 
conclusion  of  this  journey,  and  some  of  us  will  get  to  an 
eastward  conclusion,  and  some  of  us  will  get  to  no  definite 
conclusion  at  all  about  all  sorts  of  important  matters.  And 
yet  those  who  are  travelling  east,  and  those  who  are  trav- 
elling west,  and  those  who  are  wandering  haphazard,  may 
be  all  upon  the  same  ground  of  belief  and  statement  and 
amid  the  same  assembly  of  proven  facts.  Precisely  the 
same  thing,  divergence  of  result,  will  happen  if  you  al- 
ways approach  things  from  the  point  of  view  of  their 
causes,  or  if  you  approach  them  always  with  a  view  to 
their  probable  effects.  And  in  several  very  important 
groups  of  human  affairs  it  is  possible  to  show  quite  clearly 
just  how  widely  apart  the  two  methods,  pursued  each 
in  its  purity,  take  those  who  follow  them. 


3o6  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

I  suppose  that  three  hundred  years  ago  all  people  who 
thought  at  all  about  moral  questions,  about  questions  of 
right  and  wrong,  deduced  their  rules  of  conduct  absolutely 
and  unreservedly  from  the  past,  from  some  dogmatic  in- 
junction, some  finally  settled  decree.  The  great  mass  of 
people  do  so  to-day.  It  is  written,  they  say.  "Thou 
shalt  not  steal,"  for  example — that  is  the  sole,  complete, 
sufficient  reason  why  you  should  not  steal,  and  even 
to-day  there  is  a  strong  aversion  to  admit  that  there  is 
any  relation  between  the  actual  consequences  of  acts  and 
the  imperatives  of  right  and  wrong.  Our  lives  are  to 
reap  the  fruits  of  determinate  things,  and  it  is  still  a  fun- 
damental presumption  of  the  established  morality  that 
one  must  do  right  though  the  heavens  fall.  But  there 
are  people  coming  into  this  world  who  would  refuse  to 
call  it  right  if  it  brought  the  heavens  aboiit  our  heads, 
however  authoritative  its  sources  and  sanctions,  and  this 
new  disposition  is,  I  believe,  a  growing  one.  I  suppose 
in  all  ages  people  in  a  timid,  hesitating,  guilty  way  have 
tempered  the  austerity  of  a  dogmatic  moral  code  by  small 
infractions  to  secure  obviously  kindly  ends,  but  it  was,  I 
am  told,  the  Jesuits  who  first  deliberately  sought  to  qual- 
ify the  moral  interpretation  of  acts  by  a  consideration  of 
their  results.  To-day  there  are  few  people  who  have  not 
more  or  less  clearly  discovered  the  future  as  a  more  or 
less  important  factor  in  moral  considerations.  To-day 
there  is  a  certain  small  proportion  of  people  who  frankly 
regard  morality  as  a  means  to  an  end,  as  an  overriding 
of  immediate  and  personal  considerations  out  of  regard  to 
something  to  be  attained  in  the  future,  and  who  break 
away  altogether  from  the  idea  of  a  code  dogmatically 
established  forever. 

Most  of  us  are  not  so  definite  as  that,  but  most  of  us 


THE  DISCOVERY  OF  THE  FUTURE       307 

are  deeply  tinged  with  the  spirit  of  compromise  between 
the  past  and  the  future;  we  profess  an  unbounded  alle- 
giance to  the  prescriptions  of  the  past,  and  we  practise  a 
general  observance  of  its  injunctions,  but  we  qualify  to 
a  vague,  variable  extent  with  considerations  of  expedi- 
ency. We  hold,  for  example,  that  we  must  respect  our 
promises.  But  suppose  we  find  unexpectedly  that  for  one 
of  us  to  keep  a  promise,  which  has  been  sealed  and  sworn 
in  the  most  sacred  fashion,  must  lead  to  the  great  suffer- 
ing of  some  other  human  being — must  lead,  in  fact,  to 
practical  evil?  Would  a  man  do  right  or  wrong  if  he 
broke  such  a  promise?  The  practical  decision  most  mod- 
ern people  would  make  would  be  to  break  the  prornise. 
Most  would  say  that  they  did  evil  to  avoid  a  greater 
evil.  But  suppose  it  was  not  such  very  great  suffering 
we  were  going  to  inflict,  but  only  some  suffering?  And 
suppose  it  was  a  rather  important  promise?  With  most 
of  us  it  would  then  come  to  be  a  matter  of  weighing  the 
promise,  the  thing  of  the  past,  against  this  unexpected 
bad  consequence,  the  thing  of  the  future.  And  the  smaller 
the  overplus  of  evil  consequences  the  more  most  of  us 
would  vacillate.  But  neither  of  the  two  types  of  mind 
we  are  contrasting  would  vacillate  at  all.  The  legal  type 
of  mind  would  obey  the  past  unhesitatingly,  the  creative 
would  unhesitatingly  sacrifice  it  to  the  future.  The  legal 
mind  would  say,  "they  who  break  the  law  at  any  point 
break  it  altogether,"  while  the  creative  mind  would  say, 
"let  the  dead  past  bury  its  dead." 

It  is  convenient  to  take  my  illustration  from  the  sphere 
of  promises,  but  it  is  in  the  realm  of  sexual  morality  that 
the  two  methods  are  most  acutely  in  conflict. 

And  I  would  like  to  suggest  that  until  you  have  defi- 
nitely determined  either  to  obey  the  real  or  imaginary  im- 


3o8  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

peratives  of  the  past,  or  to  set  yourself  toward  the  de- 
mands of  some  ideal  of  the  future,  until  you  have  made 
up  your  mind  to  adhere  to  one  or  other  of  these  two  types 
of  mental  action  in  these  matters,  you  are  not  e^^en  within 
hope  of  a  sustained  consistency  in  the  thought  that  under- 
lies your  acts,  that  in  every  issue  of  principle  that  comes 
upon  you,  you  will  be  entirely  at  the  mercy  of  the  intel- 
lectual mood  that  happens  to  be  ascendant  at  that  par- 
ticular moment  in  your  mind. 

In  the  sphere  of  public  afifairs  also  these  two  ways  of 
looking  at  things  work  out  into  equally  divergent  and  in- 
compatible consequences.  The  legal  mind  insists  upon 
treaties,  constitutions,  legitimacies,  and  charters;  the  legis- 
lative incessantly  assails  these.  Whenever  some  period  of 
stress  sets  in,  some  great  conflict  between  institutions  and 
the  forces  in  things,  there  comes  a  sorting  out  of  these 
two  types  of  mind.  The  legal  mind  becomes  glorified 
and  transfigured  in  the  form  of  hopeless  loyalty,  the 
creative  mind  inspires  revolutions  and  reconstructions. 
And  particularly  is  this  difference  of  attitude  accentuated 
in  the  disputes  that  arise  out  of  wars.  In  most  modern 
wars  there  is  no  doubt  quite  traceable  on  one  side  or  the 
other  a  distinct  creative  idea,  a  distinct  regard  for  some 
future  consequence;  but  the  main  dispute  even  in  most 
modern  wars  and  the  sole  dispute  in  most  mediaeval  wars 
will  be  found  to  be  a  reference,  not  to  the  future,  but  to 
the  past;  to  turn  upon  a  question  of  fact  and  right.  The 
wars  of  Plantagenet  and  Lancastrian  England  with  France, 
for  example,  were  based  entirely  upon  a  dummy  claim, 
supported  by  obscure  legal  arguments,  upon  the  crown  of 
France.  And  the  arguments  that  centred  about  the  late 
war  in  South  Africa  ignored  any  ideal  of  a  great  united 
South  African  state   almost  entirely,   and   quibbled   this 


THE  DISCOVERY  OF  THE  FUTURE       309 

way  and  that  about  who  began  the  fighting  and  what  was 
or  was  not  written  in  some  obscure  revision  of  a  treaty  a 
score  of  years  ago.  Yet  beneath  the  legal  issues  the  broad 
creative  idea  has  been  apparent  in  the  public  mind  during 
this  war.  It  will  be  found  more  or  less  definitely  formu- 
lated beneath  almost  all  the  great  wars  of  the  past  cen- 
tury, and  a  comparison  of  the  wars  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury with  the  wars  of  the  Middle  Ages  will  show,  I  think, 
that  in  this  field  also  there  has  been  a  discovery  of  the 
future,  an  increasing  disposition  to  shift  the  reference  and 
values  from  things  accomplished  to  things  to  come. 

Yet  though  foresight  creeps  into  our  politics  and  a  ref- 
erence to  consequence  into  our  morality,  it  is  still  the 
past  that  dominates  our  lives.  But  why?  Why  are  we 
so  bound  to  it?  It  is  into  the  future  we  go;  to-morrow  is 
the  eventful  thing  for  us.  There  Hes  all  that  remains  to 
be  felt  by  us  and  our  children  and  all  those  that  are  dear 
to  us.  Yet  we  marshal  and  order  men  into  classes  entirely 
with  regard  to  the  past;  we  draw  shame  and  honor  out 
of  the  past;  against  the  rights  of  property,  the  vested  in- 
terests, the  agreements  and  establishments  of  the  past  the 
future  has  no  rights.  Literature  is  for  the  most  part  his- 
tory or  history  at  one  remove,  and  what  is  culture  but  a 
mould  of  interpretation  into  which  new  things  are  thrust, 
a  collection  of  standards,  a  sort  of  bed  of  King  Og,  to 
which  all  new  expressions  must  be  lopped  or  stretched? 
Our  conveniences,  like  our  thoughts,  are  all  retrospective. 
We  travel  on  roads  so  narrow  that  they  suffocate  our 
traffic;  we  live  in  uncomfortable,  inconvenient,  life-wasting 
houses  out  of  a  love  of  famiUar  shapes  and  familiar  cus- 
toms and  a  dread  of  strangeness;  all  our  public  affairs  are 
cramped  by  local  boundaries  impossibly  restricted  and 
small.     Our  clothing,  our  habits  of  speech,  our  spelling, 


3IO  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

our  weights  and  measures,  our  coinage,  our  religious  and 
political  theories,  all  witness  to  the  binding  power  of  the 
past  upon  our  minds.  Yet  we  do  not  serve  the  past  as 
the  Chinese  have  done.  There  are  degrees.  We  do  not 
worship  our  ancestors  or  prescribe  a  rigid  local  costume; 
we  dare  to  enlarge  our  stock  of  knowledge,  and  we  qualify 
the  classics  with  occasional  adventures  into  original  thought. 
Compared  with  the  Chinese  we  are  distinctly  aware  of  the 
future.  But  compared  with  what  we  might  be,  the  past 
is  all  our  world. 

The  reason  why  the  retrospective  habit,  the  legal  habit, 
is  so  dominant,  and  always  has  been  so  predominant,  is 
of  course  a  perfectly  obvious  one.  We  follow  a  funda- 
mental human  principle  and  take  what  we  can  get.  All 
people  believe  the  past  is  certain,  defined,  and  knowable, 
and  only  a  few  people  believe  that  it  is  possible  to  know 
anything  about  the  future.  Man  has  acquired  the  habit 
of  going  to  the  past  because  it  was  the  line  of  least  resist- 
ance for  his  mind.  While  a  certain  variable  portion  of 
the  past  is  serviceable  matter  for  knowledge  in  the  case 
of  every  one,  the  future  is,  to  a  mind  without  an  imagina- 
tion trained  in  scientific  habits  of  thought,  non-existent. 
All  our  minds  are  made  of  memories.  In  our  memories 
each  of  us  has  something  that  without  any  special  training 
whatever  will  go  back  into  the  past  and  grip  firmly  and 
convincingly  all  sorts  of  workable  facts,  sometimes  more 
convincingly  than  firmly.  But  the  imagination,  unless  it 
is  strengthened  by  a  very  sound  training  in  the  laws  of 
causation,  wanders  like  a  lost  child  in  the  blankness  of 
things  to  come  and  returns  empty. 

Many  people  believe,  therefore,  that  there  can  be  no 
sort  of  certainty  about  the  future.  You  can  know  ho 
more  about  the  future,  I  was  recently  assured  by  a  friend, 


THE  DISCOVERY  OF  THE   FUTURE       311 

than  you  can  know  which  way  a  kitten  will  jump  next. 
And  to  all  who  hold  that  view,  who  regard  the  future  as 
a  perpetual  source  of  convulsive  surprises,  as  an  impene- 
trable, incurable,  perpetual  blankness,  it  is  right  and  rea- 
sonable to  derive  such  values  as  it  is  necessary  to  attach 
to  things  from  the  events  that  have  certainly  happened 
with  regard  to  them.  It  is  our  ignorance  of  the  future 
and  our  persuasion  that  that  ignorance  is  absolutely  in- 
curable that  alone  gives  the  past  its  enormous  predomi- 
nance in  our  thoughts.  But  through  the  ages,  the  long 
unbroken  succession  of  fortune-tellers — and  they  flourish 
still — witnesses  to  the  perpetually  smouldering  feeling  that 
after  all  there  may  be  a  better  sort  of  knowledge,  a  more 
serviceable  sort  of  knowledge  than  that  we  now  possess. 

On  the  whole,  there  is  something  sympathetic  for  the 
dupe  of  the  fortune-teller  in  the  spirit  of  modern  science; 
it  is  one  of  the  persuasions  that  come  into  one's  mind,  as 
one  assimilates  the  broad  conception  of  science,  that  the 
adequacy  of  causation  is  universal;  that  in  absolute  fact 
— if  not  in  that  little  bubble  of  relative  fact  which  consti- 
tutes the  individual  hfe — in  absolute  fact  the  future  is  just 
as  fixed  and  determinate,  just  as  settled  and  inevitable, 
just  as  possible  a  matter  of  knowledge  as  the  past.  Our 
personal  memory  gives  us  an  impression  of  the  superior 
reality  and  trustworthiness  of  things  in  the  past,  as  of 
things  that  have  finally  committed  themselves  and  said 
their  say,  but  the  more  clearly  we  master  the  leading  con- 
ceptions of  science  the  better  we  understand  that  this 
impression  is  one  of  the  results  of  the  peculiar  conditions 
of  our  Uves,  and  not  an  absolute  truth.  The  man  of  sci- 
ence comes  to  believe  at  last  that  the  events  of  the  year 
A.  D.  4000  are  as  fixed,  settled,  and  unchangeable  as  the 
events  of  the  year  1600.     Only  about  the  latter  he  has 


312  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

some  material  for  belief  and  about  the  former  practically 
none. 

And  the  question  arises  how  far  this  absolute  ignorance 
of  the  future  is  a  fixed  and  necessary  condition  of  human 
life,  and  how  far  some  application  of  intellectual  methods 
may  not  attenuate,  even  if  it  does  not  absolutely  set  aside, 
the  veil  between  ourselves  and  things  to  come.  And  I 
am  venturing  to  suggest  to  you  that  along  certain  lines 
and  with  certain  qualifications  and  limitations  a  working 
knowledge  of  things  in  the  future  is  a  possible  and  prac- 
ticable thing.  And  in  order  to  support  this  suggestion  I 
would  call  your  attention  to  certain  facts  about  our  knowl- 
edge of  the  past,  and  more  particularly  I  would  insist 
upon  this,  that  about  the  past  our  range  of  absolute  cer- 
tainty is  very  limited  indeed.  About  the  past  I  would 
suggest  we  are  inclined  to  overestimate  our  certainty,  just 
as  I  think  we  are  inclined  to  underestimate  the  certainties 
of  the  future.  And  such  a  knowledge  of  the  past  as  we 
have  is  not  all  of  the  same  sort  or  derived  from  the  same 
sources. 

Let  us  consider  just  what  an  educated  man  of  to-day 
knows  of  the  past.  First  of  all  he  has  the  realest  of  all 
knowledge — the  knowledge  of  his  own  personal  experiences, 
his  memory.  Uneducated  people  beUeve  their  memories 
absolutely,  and  most  educated  people  believe  them  with 
a  few  reservations.  Some  of  us  take  up  a  critical  attitude 
even  toward  our  own  memories;  we  know  that  they  not 
only  sometimes  drop  things  out,  but  that  sometimes  a 
sort  of  dreaming  or  a  strong  suggestion  will  put  things 
in.  But  for  all  that,  memory  remains  vivid  and  real  as 
no  other  knowledge  can  be,  and  to  have  seen  and  heard 
and  felt  is  to  be  nearest  to  absolute  conviction.  Yet  our 
memory  of  direct  impressions  is  only  the  smallest  part  of 


THE  DISCOVERY  OF  THE  FUTURE       313 

what  we  know.  Outside  that  bright  area  comes  knowl- 
edge of  a  different  order — the  knowledge  brought  to  us  by 
other  people.  Outside  our  immediate  personal  memory 
there  comes  this  wider  area  of  facts  or  quasi- facts  told 
us  by  more  or  less  trustworthy  people,  told  us  by  word 
of  mouth  or  by  the  written  word  of  living  and  of  dead 
writers.  This  is  the  past  of  report,  rumor,  tradition,  and 
history — the  second  sort  of  knowledge  of  the  past.  The 
nearer  knowledge  of  this  sort  is  abundant  and  clear  and 
detailed,  remoter  it  becomes  vaguer,  still  more  remotely 
in  time  and  space  it  dies  down  to  brief,  imperfect  inscrip- 
tions and  enigmatical  traditions,  and  at  last  dies  away, 
so  far  as  the  records  and  traditions  of  humanity  go,  into 
a  doubt  and  darkness  as  blank,  just  as  blank,  as  futurity. 
And  now  let  me  remind  you  that  this  second  zone  of 
knowledge  outside  the  bright  area  of  what  we  have  felt 
and  witnessed  and  handled  for  ourselves — this  zone  of 
hearsay  and  history  and  tradition — completed  the  whole 
knowledge  of  the  past  that  was  accessible  to  Shakespeare, 
for  example.  To  these  limits  man's  knowledge  of  the 
past  was  absolutely  confined,  save  for  some  inklings  and 
guesses,  save  for  some  small,  almost  negligible  begiiinings, 
until  the  nineteenth  century  began.  Besides  the  correct 
knowledge  in  this  scheme  of  hearsay  and  history  a  man 
had  a  certain  amount  of  legend  and  error  that  rounded 
off  the  picture  in  a  very  satisfactory  and  misleading  way, 
according  to  Bishop  Ussher,  just  exactly  4004  years  B.  C. 
And  that  was  man's  universal  history — that  was  his  all 
— until  the  scientific  epoch  began.  And  beyond  those 
limits — ?  Well,  I  suppose  the  educated  man  of  the  six- 
teenth century  was  as  certain  of  the  non-existence  of 
anything  before  the  creation  of  the  world  as  he  was,  and 
as  most  of  us  are  still,  of  the  practical  non-existence  of 


314  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

the  future,  or  at  any  rate  he  was  as  satisfied  of  the  im- 
possibility of  knowledge  in  the  one  direction  as  in  the 
other. 

But  modern  science — that  is  to  say,  the  relentless,  sys- 
tematic criticism  of  phenomena — has  in  the  past  hundred 
years  absolutely  destroyed  the  conception  of  a  finitely  dis- 
tant beginning  of  things;  has  abohshed  such  limits  to 
the  past  as  a  dated  creation  set,  and  added  an  enormous 
vista  to  that  limited  sixteenth-century  outlook.  And 
what  I  would  insist  upon  is  that  this  further  knowledge 
is  a  new  kind  of  knowledge,  obtained  in  a  new  kind  of 
way.  We  know  to-day,  quite  as  confidently  and  in  many 
respects  more  intimately  than  we  know  Sargon  or  Zenobia 
or  Caractacus,  the  form  and  the  habits  of  creatures  that 
no  living  being  has  ever  met,  that  no  human  eye  has  ever 
regarded,  and  the  character  of  scenery  that  no  man  has 
ever  seen  or  can  ever  possibly  see;  we  picture  to  our- 
selves the  labyrinthodon  raising  his  clumsy  head  above  the 
water  of  the  carboniferous  swamps  in  which  he  lived,  and 
we  figure  the  pterodactyls,  those  great  bird  lizards,  flap- 
ping their  way  athwart  the  forests  of  the  Mesozoic  Age 
with  exactly  the  same  certainty  as  that  with  which  we 
picture  the  rhinoceros  or  the  vulture.  I  doubt  no  more 
about  the  facts  in  this  farther  picture  than  I  do  about 
those  in  the  nearest.  I  believe  in  the  megatherium  which 
I  have  never  seen  as  confidently  as  I  believe  in  the  hippo- 
potamus that  has  engulfed  buns  from  my  hand.  A  vast 
amount  of  detail  in  that  farther  picture  is  now  fixed  and 
finite  for  all  time.  And  a  countless  number  of  investi- 
gators are  persistently  and  confidently  enlarging,  ampli- 
fying, correcting,  and  pushing  further  and  further  back 
the  boundaries  of  this  greater  past — this  prehuman  past 
— that  the  scientific  criticism  of  existing  phenomena  has 


THE  DISCOVERY  OF  THE  FUTURE       315 

discovered  and  restored  and  brought  for  the  first  time 
into  the  world  of  human  thought.  We  have  become  pos- 
sessed of  a  new  and  once  unsuspected  history  of  the  world 
— of  which  all  the  history  that  was  known,  for  example,  to 
Doctor  Johnson  is  only  the  brief  concluding  chapter;  and 
even  that  concluding  chapter  has  been  greatly  enlarged 
and  corrected  by  the  exploring  archaeologists  working 
strictly  upon  the  lines  of  the  new  method — that  is  to  say, 
the  comparison  and  criticism  of  suggestive  facts. 

I  want  particularly  to  insist  upon  this,  that  ail  this 
outer  past — this  non-historical  past — is  the  product  of  a 
new  and  keener  habit  of  inquiry,  and  no  sort  of  revela- 
tion. It  is  simply  due  to  a  new  and  more  critical  way 
of  looking  at  things.  Our  knowledge  of  the  geological 
past,  clear  and  definite  as  it  has  become,  is  of  a  different 
and  lower  order  than  the  knowledge  of  our  memory,  and 
yet  of  a  quite  practicable  and  trustworthy  order — a  knowl- 
edge good  enough  to  go  upon;  and  if  one  were  to  speak 
of  the  private  memory  as  the  personal  past,  of  the  next 
wider  area  of  knowledge  as  the  traditional  or  historical 
past,  then  one  might  call  all  that  great  and  inspiring  back- 
ground of  remoter  geological  time  the  inductive  past. 

And  this  great  discovery  of  the  inductive  past  was  got 
by  the  discussion  and  rediscussion  and  effective  criticism 
of  a  number  of  existing  facts,  odd-shaped  lumps  of  stone, 
streaks  and  bandings  in  quarries  and  cliffs,  anatomical  and 
developmental  detail  that  had  always  been  about  in  the 
world,  that  had  been  lying  at  the  feet  of  mankind  so  long 
as  mankind  had  existed,  but  that  no  one  had  ever  dreamed 
before  could  supply  any  information  at  all,  much  more 
reveal  such  astounding  and  enlightening  vistas.  Looked 
at  in  a  new  way,  they  became  sources  of  dazzling  and 
penetrating  light.     The  remoter  past  lit  up  and  became 


3i6  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

a  picture.  Considered  as  effects,  compared  and  criticised, 
they  yielded  a  clairvoyant  vision  of  the  history  of  inter- 
minable years. 

And  now,  if  it  has  been  possible  for  men  by  picking  out 
a  number  of  suggestive  and  significant  looking  things  in 
the  present,  by  comparing  them,  criticising  them,  and  dis- 
cussing them,  with  a  perpetual  insistence  upon  "Why?" 
without  any  guiding  tradition,  and  indeed  in  the  teeth  of 
established  beUefs,  to  construct  this  amazing  search-light 
of  inference  into  the  remoter  past,  is  it  really,  after  all, 
such  an  extravagant  and  hopeless  thing  to  suggest  that, 
by  seeking  for  operating  causes  instead  of  for  fossils,  and 
by  criticising  them  as  persistently  and  thoroughly  as  the 
geological  record  has  been  criticised,  it  may  be  possible 
to  throw  a  search-light  of  inference  forward  instead  of 
backward,  and  to  attain  to  a  knowledge  of  coming  things 
as  clear,  as  universally  convincing,  and  infinitely  more 
important  to  mankind  than  the  clear  vision  of  the  past 
that  geology  has  opened  to  us  during  the  nineteenth 
century  ? 

Let  us  grant  that  anything  to  correspond  with  the 
memory,  anything  having  the  same  relation  to  the  future 
that  memory  has  to  the  past,  is  out  of  the  question.  We 
cannot  imagine,  of  course,  that  we  can  ever  know  any 
personal  future  to  correspond  with  our  personal  past,  or 
any  traditional  future  to  correspond  with  our  traditional 
past;  but  the  possibility  of  an  inductive  future  to  corre- 
spond with  that  great  inductive  past  of  geology  and 
archaeology  is  an  altogether  different  thing. 

I  must  confess  that  I  believe  quite  firmly  that  an  in- 
ductive knowledge  of  a  great  nimiber  of  things  in  the 
future  is  becoming  a  human  possibility.  I  believe  that 
the  time  is  drawing  near  when  it  will  be  possible  to  sug- 


THE  DISCOVERY  OF  THE  FUTURE       317 

gest  a  systematic  exploration  of  the  future.  And  you 
must  not  judge  the  practicability  of  this  enterprise  by  the 
failures  of  the  past.  So  far  nothing  has  been  attempted, 
so  far  no  first-class  mind  has  ever  focussed  itself  upon 
these  issues;  but  suppose  the  laws  of  social  and  political 
development,  for  example,  were  given  as  many  brains, 
were  given  as  much  attention,  criticism,  and  discussion 
as  we  have  given  to  the  laws  of  chemical  combination 
during  the  last  fifty  years,  what  might  we  not  expect? 

To  the  popular  mind  of  to-day  there  is  something  very 
difficult  in  such  a  suggestion,  soberly  made.  But  here,  in 
this  institution  (the  Royal  Institution  of  London)  which 
has  watched  for  a  whole  century  over  the  splendid  ado- 
lescence of  science,  and  where  the  spirit  of  science  is  surely 
understood,  you  will  know  that  as  a  matter  of  fact  prophecy 
has  always  been  inseparably  associated  with  the  idea  of 
scientific  research. 

The  popular  idea  of  scientific  investigation  is  a  vehe- 
ment, aimless  collection  of  little  facts,  collected  as  a  bower- 
bird  collects  shells  and  pebbles,  in  methodical  little  rows, 
and  out  of  this  process,  in  some  manner  unknown  to  the 
popular  mind,  certain  conjuring  tricks — the  celebrated 
"wonders  of  science" — in  a  sort  of  accidental  way  emerge. 
The  popular  conception  of  all  discovery  is  accident.  But 
you  will  know  that  the  essential  thing  in  the  scientific 
process  is  not  the  collection  of  facts,  but  the  analysis  of 
facts.  Facts  are  the  raw  material  and  not  the  substance 
of  science.  It  is  analysis  that  has  given  us  all  ordered 
knowledge,  and  you  know  that  the  aim  and  the  test  and 
the  justification  of  the  scientific  process  is  not  a  market- 
able conjuring  trick,  but  prophecy.  Until  a  scientific 
theory  yields  confident  forecasts  you  know  it  is  unsound 
and  tentative;   it  is  mere  theorizing,  as  evanescent  as  art 


3i8  COLLEGE  AND   THE  FUTURE 

talk  or  the  phantoms  politicians  talk  about.  The  splen- 
did body  of  gravitational  astronomy,  for  example,  estab- 
lishes itself  upon  the  certain  forecast  of  stellar  movements, 
and  you  would  absolutely  refuse  to  believe  its  amazing 
assertions  if  it  were  not  for  these  same  unerring  forecasts. 
The  whole  body  of  medical  science  aims,  and  claims  the 
ability,  to  diagnose.  Meteorology  constantly  and  persist- 
ently aims  at  prophecy,  and  it  will  never  stand  in  a  place 
of  honor  until  it  can  certainly  foretell.  The  chemist  fore- 
casts elements  before  he  meets  them — it  is  very  properly 
his  boast — and  the  splendid  manner  in  which  the  mind  of 
Clerk  Maxwell  reached  in  front  of  all  experiments  and 
foretold  those  things  that  Marconi  has  materialized  is 
familiar  to  us  all. 

All  applied  mathematics  resolves  into  computation  to 
foretell  things  which  otherwise  can  only  be  determined  by 
trial.  Even  in  so  unscientific  a  science  as  economics  there 
have  been  forecasts.  And  if  I  am  right  in  saying  that 
science  aims  at  prophecy,  and  if  the  speciahst  in  each 
science  is  in  fact  doing  his  best  now  to  prophesy  within 
the  limits  of  his  field,  what  is  there  to  stand  in  the  way 
of  our  building  up  this  growing  body  of  forecast  into  an 
ordered  picture  of  the  future  that  will  be  just  as  certain, 
just  as  strictly  science,  and  perhaps  just  as  detailed  as  the 
picture  that  has  been  built  up  within  the  last  hundred 
years  of  the  geological  past?  Well,  so  far  and  until  we 
bring  the  prophecy  down  to  the  affairs  of  man  and  his 
children,  it  is  just  as  possible  to  carry  induction  forward 
as  back;  it  is  just  as  simple  and  sure  to  work  out  the 
changing  orbit  of  the  earth  in  the  future  until  the  tidal 
drag  hauls  one  unchanging  face  at  last  toward  the  sun  as 
it  is  to  work  back  to  its  blazing  and  molten  past.  Until 
man  comes  in,  the  inductive  future  is  as  real  and  convinc- 


THE  DISCOVERY   OF  THE   FUTURE       319 

ing  as  the  inductive  past.  But  inorganic  forces  are  the 
smaller  part  and  the  minor  interest  in  this  concern.  Di- 
rectly man  becomes  a  factor  the  nature  of  the  problem 
changes,  and  our  whole  present  interest  centres  on  the 
question  whether  man  is,  indeed,  individually  and  collec- 
tively incalculable,  a  new  element  which  entirely  alters 
the  nature  of  our  inquiry  and  stamps  it  at  once  as  vain 
and  hopeless,  or  whether  his  presence  complicates,  but 
does  not  alter,  the  essential  nature  of  the  induction.  How 
far  may  we  hope  to  get  trustworthy  inductions  about  the 
future  of  man  ? 

Well,  I  think,  on  the  whole,  we  are  inclined  to  under- 
rate our  chance  of  certainties  in  the  future,  just  as  I  think 
we  are  inclined  to  be  too  credulous  about  the  historical 
past.  The  vividness  of  our  personal  memories,  which  are 
the  very  essence  of  reality  to  us,  throws  a  glamour  of  con- 
viction over  tradition  and  past  inductions.  But  the  per- 
sonal future  must  in  the  very  nature  of  things  be  hidden 
from  us  so  long  as  time  endures,  and  this  black  ignorance 
at  our  very  feet — this  black  shadow  that  corresponds  to  the 
brightness  of  our  memories  behind  us — throws  a  glamour 
of  uncertainty  and  unreality  over  all  the  future.  We  are 
continually  surprising  ourselves  by  our  own  will  or  want 
of  will;  the  individualities  about  us  are  continually  pro- 
ducing the  unexpected,  and  it  is  very  natural  to  reason 
that  as  we  can  never  be  precisely  sure  before  the  time 
comes  what  we  are  going  to  do  and  feel,  and  if  we  can 
never  count  with  absolute  certainty  upon  the  acts  and 
happenings  even  of  our  most  intimate  friends,  how  much 
the  more  impossible  is  it  to  anticipate  the  behavior  in 
any  direction  of  states  and  communities. 

In  reply  to  which  I  would  advance  the  suggestion  that 
an  increase  in  the  number  of  human  beings  considered 


320     COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

may  positively  simplify  the  case  instead  of  complicating 
it;  that  as  the  individuals  increase  in  number  they  begin 
to  average  out.  Let  me  illustrate  this  point  by  a  com- 
parison. Angular  pit-sand  has  grains  of  the  most  varied 
shapes.  Examined  microscopically,  you  will  find  all  sorts 
of  angles  and  outlines  and  variations.  Before  you  look 
you  can  say  of  no  particular  grain  what  its  outline  will 
be.  And  if  you  shoot  a  load  of  such  sand  from  a  cart  you 
cannot  foretell  with  any  certainty  where  any  particular 
grain  will  be  in  the  heap  that  you  make;  but  you  can  tell 
— you  can  tell  pretty  definitely — the  form  of  the  heap  as 
a  whole.  And  further,  if  you  pass  that  sand  through  a 
series  of  shoots  and  finally  drop  it  some  distance  to  the 
ground,  you  will  be  able  to  foretell  that  grains  of  a  cer- 
tain sort  of  form  and  size  will  for  the  most  part  be  found 
in  one  part  of  the  heap  and  grains  of  another  sort  of  form 
and  size  will  be  found  in  another  part  of  the  heap.  In 
such  a  case,  you  see,  the  thing  as  a  whole  may  be  simpler 
than  its  component  parts,  and  this  I  submit  is  also  the 
case  in  many  human  affairs.  So  that  because  the  indi- 
vidual future  eludes  us  completely  that  is  no  reason  why 
we  should  not  aspire  to,  and  discover  and  use,  safe  and 
serviceable  generalizations  upon  countless  important  issues 
in  the  human  destiny. 

But  there  is  a  very  grave  and  important-looking  differ- 
ence between  a  load  of  sand  and  a  multitude  of  human 
beings,  and  this  I  must  face  and  examine.  Our  thoughts 
and  wills  and  emotions  are  contagious.  An  exceptional 
sort  of  sand  grain,  a  sand  grain  that  was  exceptionally 
big  and  heavy,  for  example,  exerts  no  influence  worth  con- 
sidering upon  any  other  of  the  sand  grains  in  the  load. 
They  will  fall  and  roll  and  heap  themselves  just  the  same 
whether  that  exceptional  grain  is  with  them  or  not;    but 


THE   DISCOVERY   OF   THE   FUTURE       321 

an  exceptional  man  comes  into  the  world,  a  Caesar  or  a 
Napoleon  or  a  Peter  the  Hermit,  and  he  appears  to  per- 
suade and  convince  and  compel  and  take  entire  possession 
of  the  sand  heap — I  mean  the  community — and  to  twist 
and  alter  its  destinies  to  an  almost  unlimited  extent.  And 
if  this  is  indeed  the  case,  it  reduces  our  project  of  an  in- 
ductive knowledge  of  the  future  to  very  small  limits.  To 
hope  to  foretell  the  birth  and  coming  of  men  of  exceptional 
force  and  genius  is  to  hope  incredibly,  and  if,  indeed,  such 
exceptional  men  do  as  much  as  they  seem  to  do  in  warp- 
ing the  path  of  humanity,  our  utmost  prophetic  limit  in 
human  affairs  is  a  conditional  sort  of  prophecy.  If  people 
do  so  and  so,  we  can  say,  then  such  and  such  results  will 
follow,  and  we  must  admit  that  that  is  our  limit. 

But  everybody  does  not  believe  in  the  importance  of 
the  leading  man.  There  are  those  who  will  say  that  the 
whole  world  is  different  by  reason  of  Napoleon.  There 
are  those  who  will  say  that  the  world  of  to-day  would 
be  very  much  as  it  is  now  if  Napoleon  had  never  been 
born.  Other  men  would  have  arisen  to  make  Napoleon's 
conquests  and  codify  the  law,  redistribute  the  worn-out 
boundaries  of  Europe,  and  achieve  all  those  changes  which 
we  so  readily  ascribe  to  Napoleon's  will  alone.  There  are 
those  who  believe  entirely  in  the  individual  man  and  those 
who  believe  entirely  in  the  forces  behind  the  individual 
man,  and  for  my  own  part  I  must  confess  myself  a  rather 
extreme  case  of  the  latter  kind.  I  must  confess  I  believe 
that  if  by  some  juggling  with  space  and  time  Julius  Caesar, 
Napoleon,  Edward  IV,  William  the  Conqueror,  Lord  Rose- 
bery,  and  Robert  Burns  had  all  been  changed  at  birth  it 
would  not  have  produced  any  serious  dislocation  of  the 
course  of  destiny.  I  believe  that  these  great  men  of  ours 
axe  no  more  than  images  and  symbols  and  instruments 


322  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

taken,  as  it  were,  haphazard  by  the  incessant  and  con- 
sistent forces  behind  them;  they  are  the  pen-nibs  Fate  has 
used  for  her  writing,  the  diamonds  upon  the  drill  that 
pierces  through  the  rock.  And  the  more  one  incUnes  to 
this  trust  in  forces  the  more  one  will  believe  in  the  pos- 
sibiUty  of  a  reasoned  inductive  view  of  the  future  that 
will  serve  us  in  politics,  in  morals,  in  social  contrivances, 
and  in  a  thousand  spacious  ways.  And  even  those  who 
take  the  most  extreme  and  personal  and  melodramatic 
view  of  the  ways  of  human  destiny,  who  see  life  as  a  tissue 
of  fairy  godmother  births  and  accidental  meetings  and 
promises  and  jealousies,  will,  I  suppose,  admit  there  comes 
a  limit  to  these  things — that  at  last  personality  dies  away 
and  the  greater  forces  come  to  their  own.  The  great 
man,  however  great  he  be,  cannot  set  back  the  whole 
scheme  of  things;  what  he  does  in  right  and  reason  will 
remain,  and  what  he  does  against  the  greater  creative 
forces  will  perish.  We  cannot  foresee  him;  let  us  grant 
that.  His  personal  difference,  the  splendor  of  his  effect, 
his  dramatic  arrangement  of  events  will  be  his  own — in 
other  words,  we  cannot  estimate  for  accidents  and  accel- 
erations and  delays;  but  if  only  we  throw  our  web  of 
generalization  wide  enough,  if  only  we  spin  our  rope  of 
induction  strong  enough,  the  final  result  of  the  great  man, 
his  ultimate  surviving  consequences,  will  come  within 
our  net. 

Such,  then,  is  the  sort  of  knowledge  of  the  future  that 
I  believe  is  attainable  and  worth  attaining.  I  believe 
that  the  deliberate  direction  of  historical  study  and  of 
economic  and  social  study  toward  the  future  and  an  in- 
creasing reference,  a  deliberate  and  courageous  reference, 
to  the  future  in  moral  and  religious  discussion,  would  be 
enormously  stimulating  and  enormously  profitable  to  our 


THE  DISCOVERY  OF  THE  FUTURE       323 

intellectual  life,  I  have  done  my  best  to  suggest  to  you 
that  such  an  enterprise  is  now  a  serious  and  practicable 
undertaking.  But  at  the  risk  of  repetition  I  would  call 
your  attention  to  the  essential  difference  that  must  always 
hold  between  our  attainable  knowledge  of  the  future  and 
our  existing  knowledge  of  the  past.  The  portion  of  the 
past  that  is  brightest  and  most  real  to  each  of  us  is  the 
individual  past — the  personal  memory.  The  portion  of 
the  future  that  must  remain  darkest  and  least  accessible 
is  the  individual  future.  Scientific  prophecy  will  not  be 
fortune-telling,  whatever  else  it  may  be.  Those  excellent 
people  who  cast  horoscopes,  those  illegal  fashionable  palm- 
reading  ladies  who  abound  so  much  to-day,  in  whom  no- 
body is  so  foolish  as  to  believe,  and  to  whom  everybody 
is  foolish  enough  to  go,  need  fear  no  competition  from  the 
scientific  prophets.  The  knowledge  of  the  future  we  may 
hope  to  gain  will  be  general  and  not  individual;  it  will  be 
no  sort  of  knowledge  that  will  either  hamper  us  in  the  ex- 
ercise of  our  individual  free  will  or  relieve  us  of  our  personal 
responsibility. 

And  now,  how  far  is  it  possible  at  the  present  time  to 
speculate  on  the  particular  outline  the  future  will  assume 
when  it  is  investigated  in  this  way? 

It  is  interesting,  before  we  answer  that  question,  to 
take  into  account  the  speculations  of  a  certain  sect  and 
culture  of  people  who  already,  before  the  middle  of  last 
century,  had  set  their  faces  toward  the  future  as  the  jus- 
tifying explanation  of  the  present.  These  were  the  posi- 
tivists,  whose  position  is  still  most  eloquently  maintained 
and  displayed  by  Mr.  Frederic  Harrison,  in  spite  of  the 
great  expansion  of  the  human  outlook  that  has  occurred 
since  Comte. 

If  you  read  Mr.  Harrison,  and  if  you  are  also,  as  I  pre- 


324  COLLEGE  AND   THE  FUTURE 

sume  your  presence  here  indicates,  saturated  with  that 
new  wine  of  more  spacious  knowledge  that  has  been  given 
the  world  during  the  last  fifty  years,  you  will  have  been 
greatly  impressed  by  the  peculiar  limitations  of  the  posi- 
tivist  conception  of  the  future.  So  far  as  I  can  gather, 
Comte  was,  for  all  practical  purposes,  totally  ignorant  of 
that  remoter  past  outside  the  past  that  is  known  to  us 
by  history;  or  if  he  was  not  totally  ignorant  of  its  exis- 
tence, he  was,  and  conscientiously  remained,  ignorant  of 
its  relevancy  to  the  history  of  humanity.  In  the  narrow 
and  Umited  past  he  recognized  men  had  always  been  like 
the  men  of  to-day;  in  the  future  he  could  not  imagine 
that  they  would  be  anything  more  than  men  like  the  men 
of  to-day.  He  perceived,  as  we  all  perceive,  that  the  old 
social  order  was  breaking  up,  and  after  a  richly  suggestive 
and  incomplete  analysis  of  the  forces  that  were  breaking 
it  up  he  set  himself  to  plan  a  new  static  social  order  to 
replace  it.  If  you  will  read  Comte,  or,  what  is  much 
easier  and  pleasanter,  if  you  will  read  Mr.  Frederic  Har- 
rison, you  will  find  this  conception  constantly  apparent — 
that  there  was  once  a  stable  condition  of  society  with 
humanity,  so  to  speak,  sitting  down  in  an  orderly  and 
respectable  manner;  that  humanity  has  been  stirred  up 
and  is  on  the  move,  and  that  finally  it  will  sit  down  again 
on  a  higher  plane,  and  for  good  and  all,  cultured  and 
happy,  in  the  reorganized  positivist  state.  And  since  he 
could  see  nothing  beyond  man  in  the  future,  there,  in  that 
millennial  fashion,  Comte  had  to  end.  Since  he  could  im- 
agine nothing  higher  than  man,  he  had  to  assert  that 
humanity,  and  particularly  the  future  of  humanity,  was 
the  highest  of  all  conceivable  things. 

All  that  was  perfectly  comprehensible  in  a  thinker  of 
the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century.  But  we  of  the 
early  twentieth,  and  particularly  that  growing  majority 


THE  DISCOVERY  OF  THE  FUTURE       325 

of  us  who  have  been  born  since  the  Origin  of  Species  was 
written,  have  no  excuse  for  any  such  limited  vision.  Our 
imaginations  have  been  trained  upon  a  past  in  which  the 
past  that  Comte  knew  is  scarcely  more  than  the  conclud- 
ing moment.  We  perceive  that  man,  and  all  the  world 
of  men,  is  no  more  than  the  present  phase  of  a  develop- 
ment so  great  and  splendid  that  beside  this  vision  epics 
jingle  like  nursery-rhymes,  and  all  the  exploits  of  human- 
ity shrivel  to  the  proportion  of  castles  in  the  sand.  We 
look  back  through  countless  millions  of  years  and  see  the 
will  to  live  struggling  out  of  the  intertidal  slime,  struggling 
from  shape  to  shape  and  from  power  to  power,  crawling 
and  then  walking  confidently  upon  the  land,  struggling 
generation  after  generation  to  master  the  air,  creeping 
down  into  the  darkness  of  the  deep;  we  see  it  turn  upon 
itself  in  rage  and  hunger  and  reshape  itself  anew;  we 
watch  it  draw  nearer  and  more  akin  to  us,  expanding, 
elaborating  itself,  pursuing  its  relentless,  inconceivable 
purpose,  until  at  last  it  reaches  us  and  its  being  beats 
through  our  brains  and  arteries,  throbs  and  thunders  in 
our  battleships,  roars  through  our  cities,  sings  in  our 
music,  and  flowers  in  our  art.  And  when,  from  that  retro- 
spect, we  turn  again  toward  the  future,  surely  any  thought 
of  finality,  any  millennial  settlement  of  cultured  persons, 
has  vanished  from  our  minds. 

This  fact  that  man  is  not  final  is  the  great  unmanage- 
able, disturbing  fact  that  arises  upon  us  in  the  scientific 
discovery  of  the  future,  and  to  my  mind,  at  any  rate,  the 
question  what  is  to  come  after  man  is  the  most  persist- 
ently fascinating  and  the  most  insoluble  question  in  the 
whole  world. 

Of  course  we  have  no  answer.  Such  imaginations  as 
we  have  refuse  to  rise  to  the  task. 

But  for  the  nearer  future,  while  man  is  still  man,  there 


326  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

are  a  few  general  statements  that  seem  to  grow  more 
certain.  It  seems  to  be  pretty  generally  believed  to-day 
that  our  dense  populations  are  in  the  opening  phase  of  a 
process  of  diffusion  and  aeration.  It  seems  pretty  inevi- 
table also  that  at  least  the  mass  of  white  population  in 
the  world  will  be  forced  some  way  up  the  scale  of  educa- 
tion and  personal  efficiency  in  the  next  two  or  three  dec- 
ades. It  is  not  difficult  to  collect  reasons  for  supposing — 
and  such  reasons  have  been  collected — that  in  the  near 
future,  in  a  couple  of  hundred  years,  as  one  rash  optimist 
has  written,  or  in  a  thousand  or  so,  humanity  will  be 
definitely  and  conscientiously  organizing  itself  as  a  great 
world  state — a  great  world  state  that  will  purge  from 
itself  much  that  is  mean,  much  that  is  bestial,  and  much 
that  makes  for  individual  dulness  and  dreariness,  gray- 
ness  and  wretchedness  in  the  world  of  to-day;  and  al- 
though we  know  that  there  is  nothing  final  in  that  world 
state,  although  we  see  it  only  as  something  to  be  reached 
and  passed,  although  we  are  sure  there  will  be  no  such 
sitting  down  to  restore  and  perfect  a  culture  as  the  posi- 
tivists  foretell,  yet  few  people  can  persuade  themselves  to 
see  anything  beyond  that  except  in  the  vaguest  and  most 
general  terms.  That  world  state  of  more  vivid,  beautiful, 
and  eventful  people  is,  so  to  speak,  on  the  brow  of  the 
hill,  and  we  cannot  see  over,  though  some  of  us  can  im- 
agine great  uplands  beyond,  and  something,  something 
that  glitters  elusively,  taking  first  one  form  and  then 
another,  through  the  haze.  We  can  see  no  detail,  we 
can  see  nothing  definable,  and  it  is  simply,  I  know,  the 
sanguine  necessity  of  our  minds  that  makes  us  believe 
those  uplands  of  the  future  are  still  more  gracious  and 
splendid  than  we  can  either  hope  or  imagine.  But  of 
things  that  can  be  demonstrated  we  have  none. 


THE  DISCOVERY  OF  THE  FUTURE       327 

Yet  I  suppose  most  of  us  entertain  certain  necessary 
persuasions,  without  which  a  moral  life  in  this  world  is 
neither  a  reasonable  nor  a  possible  thing.  All  this  paper 
is  built  finally  upon  certain  negative  beliefs  that  are  in- 
capable of  scientific  establishment.  Our  lives  and  powers 
are  limited,  our  scope  in  space  and  time  is  limited,  and 
it  is  not  unreasonable  that  for  fundamental  beUefs  we 
must  go  outside  the  sphere  of  reason  and  set  our  feet  upon 
faith.  Implicit  in  all  such  speculations  as  this  is  a  very 
definite  and  quite  arbitrary  belief,  and  that  belief  is  that 
neither  humanity  nor  in  truth  any  individual  human  being 
is  hving  its  Ufe  in  vain.  And  it  is  entirely  by  an  act  of 
faith  that  we  must  rule  out  of  our  forecasts  certain  possi- 
bilities, certain  things  that  one  may  consider  improbable 
and  against  the  chances,  but  that  no  one  upon  scientific 
grounds  can  call  impossible. 

One  must  admit  that  it  is  impossible  to  show  why 
certain  things  should  not  utterly  destroy  and  end  the 
entire  human  race  and  story,  why  night  should  not  pres- 
ently come  down  and  make  all  our  dreams  and  efforts 
vain.  It  is  conceivable,  for  example,  that  some  great 
unexpected  mass  of  matter  should  presently  rush  upon 
us  out  of  space,  whirl  sun  and  planets  aside  like  dead 
leaves  before  the  breeze,  and  collide  with  and  utterly 
destroy  every  spark  of  life  upon  this  earth.  So  far  as 
positive  human  knowledge  goes,  this  is  a  conceivably  pos- 
sible thing.  There  is  nothing  in  science  to  show  why 
such  a  thing  should  not  be.  It  is  conceivable,  too,  that 
some  pestilence  may  presently  appear,  some  new  disease, 
that  will  destroy,  not  ten  or  fifteen  or  twenty  per  cent 
of  the  earth's  inhabitants  as  pestilences  have  done  in  the 
past,  but  one  hundred  per  cent;  and  so  end  our  race. 
No  one,  speaking  from  scientific  grounds  alone,  can  say: 


328     COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

''That  cannot  be."  And  no  one  can  dispute  that  some 
great  disease  of  the  atmosphere,  some  traihng  cometary 
poison,  some  great  emanation  of  vapor  from  the  interior 
of  the  earth,  such  as  Mr.  Shiel  has  made  a  brilliant  use 
of  in  his  Purple  Cloud,  is  consistent  with  every  demon- 
strated fact  in  the  world.  There  may  arise  new  ani- 
mals to  prey  upon  us  by  land  and  sea,  and  there  may 
come  some  drug  or  a  wrecking  madness  into  the  minds 
of  men.  And,  finally,  there  is  the  reasonable  certainty 
that  this  sun  of  ours  must  radiate  itself  toward  extinction; 
that,  at  least,  must  happen;  it  will  grow  cooler  and  cooler, 
and  its  planets  will  rotate  ever  more  sluggishly  until  some 
day  this  earth  of  ours,  tideless  and  slow-moving,  will  be 
dead  and  frozen,  and  all  that  has  lived  upon  it  will  be 
frozen  out  and  done  with.  There  surely  man  must  end. 
That  of  all  such  nightmares  is  the  most  insistently  con- 
vincing. 

And  yet  one  doesn't  believe  it. 

At  least  I  do  not.  And  I  do  not  believe  in  these  things 
because  I  have  come  to  believe  in  certain  other  things — 
in  the  coherency  and  purpose  in  the  world  and  in  the 
greatness  of  human  destiny.  Worlds  may  freeze  and  suns 
may  perish,  but  there  stirs  something  within  us  now  that 
can  never  die  again. 

Do  not  misunderstand  me  when  I  speak  of  the  great- 
ness of  human  destiny. 

If  I  may  speak  quite  openly  to  you,  I  will  confess  that, 
considered  as  a  final  product,  I  do  not  think  very  much 
of  myself  or  (saving  your  presence)  my  fellow  creatures. 
I  do  not  think  I  could  possibly  join  in  the  worship  of 
humanity  with  any  gravity  or  sincerity.  Think  of  it! 
Think  of  the  positive  facts.  There  are  surely  moods  for 
all  of  us  when  one  can  feel  Swift's  amazement  that  such 


THE  DISCOVERY  OF  THE  FUTURE       329 

a  being  should  deal  in  pride.  There  are  moods  when  one 
can  join  in  the  laughter  of  Democritus;  and  they  would 
come  oftener  were  not  the  spectacle  of  human  littleness 
so  abundantly  shot  with  pain.  But  it  is  not  only  with 
pain  that  the  world  is  shot — it  is  shot  with  promise.  Small 
as  our  vanity  and  carnality  make  us,  there  has  been  a 
day  of  still  smaller  things.  It  is  the  long  ascent  of  the 
past  that  gives  the  lie  to  our  despair.  We  know  now 
that  all  the  blood  and  passion  of  our  life  were  represented 
in  the  Carboniferous  time  by  something — something,  per- 
haps, cold-blooded  and  with  a  clammy  skin,  that  lurked 
between  air  and  water,  and  fled  before  the  giant  amphibia 
of  those  days. 

For  all  the  folly,  blindness,  and  pain  of  our  lives,  we 
have  come  some  way  from  that.  And  the  distance  we 
have  travelled  gives  us  some  earnest  of  the  way  we  have 
yet  to  go. 

Why  should  things  cease  at  man?  Why  should  not 
this  rising  curve  rise  yet  more  steeply  and  swiftly  ?  There 
are  many  things  to  suggest  that  we  are  now  in  a  phase 
of  rapid  and  unprecedented  development.  The  conditions 
under  which  men  live  are  changing  with  an  ever-increasing 
rapidity,  and,  so  far  as  our  knowledge  goes,  no  sort  of 
creatures  have  ever  lived  under  changing  conditions  with- 
out undergoing  the  profoundest  changes  themselves.  In 
the  past  century  there  was  more  change  in  the  conditions 
of  human  life  than  there  had  been  in  the  previous  thou- 
sand years.  A  hundred  years  ago  inventors  and  inves- 
tigators were  rare,  scattered  men,  and  now  invention  and 
inquiry  are  the  work  of  an  unorganized  army.  This  cen- 
tury will  see  changes  that  will  dwarf  those  of  the  nine- 
teenth century,  as  those  of  the  nineteenth  dwarf  those  of 
the  eighteenth.     One  can  see  no  sign  anywhere  that  this 


330  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

rush  of  change  will  be  over  presently,  that  the  positivist 
dream  of  a  social  reconstruction  and  of  a  new  static  cul- 
ture phase  will  ever  be  realized.  Human  society  never  has 
been  quite  static,  and  it  will  presently  cease  to  attempt 
to  be  static.  Everything  seems  pointing  to  the  belief  that 
we  are  entering  upon  a  progress  that  will  go  on,  with  an 
ever-widening  and  ever  more  confident  stride,  forever. 
The  reorganization  of  society  that  is  going  on  now  be- 
neath the  traditional  appearance  of  things  is  a  kinetic 
reorganization.  We  are  getting  into  marching  order.  We 
have  struck  our  camp  forever  and  we  are  out  upon  the 
roads. 

We  are  in  the  beginning  of  the  greatest  change  that 
humanity  has  ever  undergone.  There  is  no  shock,  no 
epoch-making  incident — but  then  there  is  no  shock  at  a 
cloudy  daybreak.  At  no  point  can  we  say:  "Here  it  com- 
mences, now;  last  minute  was  night  and  this  is  morning." 
But  insensibly  we  are  in  the  day.  If  we  care  to  look,  we 
can  foresee  growing  knowledge,  growing  order,  and  pres- 
ently a  deliberate  improvement  of  the  blood  and  char- 
acter of  the  race.  And  what  we  can  see  and  imagine 
gives  us  a  measure  and  gives  us  faith  for  what  surpasses 
the  imagination. 

It  is  possible  to  believe  that  all  the  past  is  but  the  be- 
ginning of  a  beginning,  and  that  all  that  is  and  has  been 
is  but  the  twilight  of  the  dawn.  It  is  possible  to  believe 
that  all  that  the  human  mind  has  ever  accomplished  is 
but  the  dream  before  the  awakening.  We  cannot  see, 
there  is  no  need  for  us  to  see,  what  this  world  will  be  like 
when  the  day  has  fully  come.  We  are  creatures  of  the 
twilight.  But  it  is  out  of  our  race  and  lineage  that  minds 
will  spring,  that  will  reach  back  to  us  in  our  littleness  to 
know  us  better  than  we  know  ourselves,  and  that  will 


THE  DISCOVERY  OF  THE  FUTURE       331 

reach  forward  fearlessly  to  comprehend  this  future  that 
defeats  our  eyes. 

All  this  world  is  heavy  with  the  promise  of  greater 
things,  and  a  day  will  come,  one  day  in  the  unending 
succession  of  days,  when  beings,  beings  who  are  now  latent 
in  our  thoughts  and  hidden  in  our  loins,  shall  stand  upon 
this  earth  as  one  stands  upon  a  footstool,  and  shall  laugh 
and  reach  out  their  hands  amid  the  stars. 


XXII 
THE  GREAT  ANALYSIS^ 


What  is  wrong  with  the  world  is  its  vastness.  That  is 
what  hinders  us  from  reducing  the  chaos  of  human  a£Fairs 
to  a  rational  order.  In  relation  to  the  solar  system  the 
earth  is  small;  in  relation  to  the  universe,  infinitesimal; 
but  in  relation  to  the  mind  of  man  it  is  bewilderingly 
huge  and  compUcated.  No  human  intellect  has  hitherto 
been  able  to  conceive  in  any  detail  a  rational  world-order, 
for  no  human  intellect  has  had  the  power  of  grasping  a 
thousandth  part  of  the  factors  in  the  problem.  There 
have  been  Utopias  in  plenty,  both  in  literature  and  in 
political  experiment:  but  a  Utopia  is  precisely  a  world- 
order  in  which  the  data  of  the  problem  are  ignored. 

The  purpose  of  the  present  essay  is  to  inquire  whether 
the  human  mind  must  forever  remain  inadequate  to  the 
effort  required  to  bring  cosmos  out  of  chaos — whether  the 
time  has  not  come  (or  is  not  approaching)  when  a  world- 
order  may  be  projected  on  the  basis  of  a  competent  knowl- 
edge or  forecast  of  all  the  factors.  I  suggest  that  a  new 
instrument  of  precision  lies  ready  to  our  hands,  needing 
only  an  organizing  genius,  with  a  selected  stafif  of  assis- 
tants, to  make  effective  use  of  it  on  a  sufi&ciently  com- 

•  Reprinted  from  The  Great  Analysis,  a  Plea  for  a  Rational  World  Order, 
published  by  Charles  Scribner's  Sons. 

332 


THE  GREAT  ANALYSIS  333 

prehensive  scale.  It  is  no  recondite  or  unfamiliar  instru- 
ment: we  employ  it  very  frequently,  in  every-day  affairs. 
But  it  is  somewhat  difl&cult  to  handle,  even  on  a  small 
scale;  and  to  apply  it  to  the  problem  of  world-order  is  a 
task,  no  doubt,  for  a  giant  brain.  My  humble  design,  in 
the  meantime,  is  to  give,  mayhap,  a  little  twist  in  the 
right  direction  to  one  or  other  of  the  giant  intellects  which 
are  possibly,  and  even  probably,  ripening  around  us. 

What  do  we  mean  when  we  speak  of  world-order?  The 
actual  thing  is  so  unrecorded  in  history,  so  remote  from 
practical  experience,  that  many  people  find  it  hard  to 
grasp  even  the  bare  concept.  I  propose,  then,  to  illus- 
trate the  concept  on  a  greatly  reduced  and  simplified 
scale. 

n 

Most  of  us  have  heard  of  Sir  George  Darwin's  specu- 
lation that  the  moon  consists  of  matter  which,  at  some 
indefinitely  remote  period,  flew  off  at  a  tangent  from  the 
earth,  leaving  a  gap  now  occupied  by  the  Pacific  Ocean. 
Well,  let  us  suppose  that,  one  fine  day,  the  county  of 
York  were  in  Hke  manner  to  break  loose  from  its  moor- 
ings and  drift  away  into  space,  until  it  reached  a  point 
at  which  the  balance  of  forces,  rounding  it  as  on  a  turn- 
ing-lathe, set  it  rotating,  a  second  satellite,  between  the 
moon  and  the  earth.  Let  us  suppose  that  its  climatic 
conditions  remained  practically  unaltered,  and  that  it  took 
its  minerals  along  with  it,  and  a  due  allowance  of  sea. 
Let  us  suppose,  moreover,  that  the  disruption  from  the 
earth  produced  no  instant  or  startling  change  in  the  mental 
constitution  of  its  inhabitants.  We  may  also  assume, 
what  would  probably  be  the  fact,  that  the  population, 
at  the  moment  of  severance,  was  fairly  representative  of 


334     COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

the  English  people  as  a  whole — of  its  virtues  and  vices, 
its  ideals  and  prejudices,  its  talents  and  its  limitations. 
And  one  thing  more  we  must  postulate — namely,  that  the 
libraries  and  laboratories  of  the  errant  region  contained 
all  that  was  necessary  to  place  its  people  fully  abreast  of 
modern  science,  research,  and  speculation. 

Yorkshire,^  then,  with  its  three  and  a  half  million  in- 
habitants— its  peers  and  merchant  princes,  its  squirearchy 
and  its  clergy,  its  soldiers,  its  sailors,  its  fishermen,  its 
villa  residents,  living  on  their  dividends,  its  shopkeepers 
and  its  artisans,  its  workers  in  factories  and  foundries 
and  mines,  its  unskilled  laborers,  its  ploughmen  and  shep- 
herds, the  tramps  on  its  country  roads,  and  the  grimy  social 
sediment  of  its  slums — this  fragment  of  what  we  call 
European  civilization  would  (by  hypothesis)  be  swinging 
through  space,  a  self-contained  planeticule,  cut  off  from 
all  communication  with  the  rest  of  the  universe.  In  proc- 
ess of  time,  indeed,  it  might  learn  to  exchange  signals 
with  its  parent  earth;  but  we  assume  that  any  transit  of 
material  objects,  animate  or  inanimate,  between  our  globe 
and  its  new  satellite  is  forever  out  of  the  question. 

What  would  ensue?  As  this  is  not  a  Utopian  romance, 
I  make  no  attempt  to  prophesy  in  detail.  There  would 
be  a  period,  no  doubt,  of  great  confusion  and  suffering. 
Most  of  the  luxuries  of  the  rich,  many  of  the  necessaries 
or  quasi-necessaries  of  the  poor,  would  be  suddenly  cut 
off.  There  could  be  no  replenishing  of  whatever  stock 
happened  to  be  in  hand  of  wine,  tobacco,  rubber,  petrol, 

*  One  of  the  smaller  among  the  United  States  would  equally  well  serve 
the  purpose  of  this  illustration.  We  might  take  the  State  of  Massachusetts, 
for  example — larger  in  area  than  Yorkshire,  somewhat  smaller  in  popula- 
tion. The  main  difference  would  lie  in  the  fact  that  the  population  of  Mas- 
sachusetts would  not  be  so  homogeneous  as  that  of  Yorkshire,  so  that  cer- 
tain race  problems  might  have  to  be  encountered. 


THE  GREAT  ANALYSIS  335 

tea,  coffee,  cocoa,  sugar, ^  oranges,  lemons,  bananas.  Man- 
ufacturers would  be  cut  off  from  almost  all  their  markets. 
Famine  could  be  avoided,  if  at  all,  only  by  the  most  drastic 
measures.  Possibly  the  organizing  talents  of  the  county 
(let  us  continue  to  call  it  so)  might  get  together,  take  com- 
mand, as  born  leaders,  of  the  police  and  military  forces, 
seize  all  food-supplies,  and  dole  out  siege-rations,  until  the 
food-producing  resources  of  the  territory  could  be  devel- 
oped in  proportion  to  the  new  claims  upon  them.  Pos- 
sibly, on  the  other  hand,  the  organizers  might  convince 
themselves  that  the  county  was  essentially  overpopulated, 
in  relation  to  its  inherent  resources  (even  under  intensive 
cultivation),  and  might  decide  that  to  fight  against  the 
ultimately  inevitable  famine  would  only  be  to  prolong  the 
agony,  widen  the  area  of  suffering,  and  postpone  the  even- 
tual reorganization  of  Hfe.^  In  one  way  or  another  at  any 
rate — whether  by  the  elimination  of  the  unfittest,  or  by 
the  prompt  and  skilful  utiUzation  of  natural  resources, 
or,  more  probably,  by  both  processes — some  sort  of  bal- 
ance would  sooner  or  later  be  established  between  food 
and  population;  and,  the  transitional  state  of  siege  being 
over,  Yorkshiremen  might  calmly  and  at  leisure  set  about 
the  reconstruction  of  their  polity.    How  would  it  proceed  ? 


m 

Evidently  a  resolute  effort  would  be  made  to  set  up 
anew  the  hierarchy  of  British  society — the  great  land- 
owner, the  capitalist,  the  small  landholder,  the  dividend- 
drawer  {rentier,  in  French),  the  tradesman,  the  artisan, 

•  Until  beet-culture  could  be  established  on  a  large  enough  scale. 

'  I  make  no  attempt  at  a  definite  estimate  of  the  food  resources  of  York- 
shire, for  the  details  of  the  period  of  transition  are  wholly  inessential  to  my 
argument. 


336  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

the  operative,  the  peasant.  But  this  providential  grada- 
tion, and  the  assumptions  on  which  it  rests,  would  have 
received  a  rude  shock  in  the  days  of  the  disruption.  Per- 
haps, if  the  ''governing  classes"  had  been  wise  in  their 
generation,  they  might,  instantly  on  the  occurrence  of  the 
catastrophe,  have  organized  a  highly  bribed  army,  and  de- 
Uberately  set  about  the  protection  of  their  privileges,  at 
whatever  cost  of  famine  and  slaughter  the  circumstances 
might  entail.  Had  this  endeavor  succeeded,  the  resultant 
pohty  would  have  been  a  military  oligarchy,  ruling  over 
a  practically  enslaved  proletariat.  But  it  is  very  doubtful 
whether,  in  these  days  of  sentimental  humanitarianism, 
the  privileged  classes  would  have  stood  together  with  suf- 
ficient unanimity  to  make  the  attempt  successful,  or  would 
have  found  among  the  non-privileged  classes  a  sufficient 
number  of  mercenaries  who  could  be  bribed  to  do  their 
dirty  work.  It  is  much  more  probable  that  whatever  au- 
thorities came  into  power  on  the  morrow  of  the  disrup- 
tion would  act  nominally,  and  (according  to  their  lights) 
sincerely,  in  the  interests  of  the  whole  community,  and 
would  be  pretty  loyally  supported  in  so  doing  by  the  priv- 
ileged classes.  This  is  the  state  of  things  I  have  assumed 
above;  and,  this  granted,  it  would  be  extremely  difficult 
for  society  to  settle  down,  after  the  period  of  stress  was 
over,  into  its  old  pyramidal  structure,  with  the  territorial 
duke  at  its  apex,  and  the  hind  and  the  casual  laborer  at 
its  base. 

Think  of  all  the  forces  that  would  oppose  themselves 
to  a  restoration  of  "the  classes  and  the  masses,"  and  of 
the  old  concepts  of  the  rights  of  property  on  which  rests 
the  scheme  of  social  subordination ! 

The  great  principle  that  "a  man  can  do  what  he  likes 
with  his  own,"  suspended  during  the  months  or  years  of 


THE   GREAT  ANALYSIS  337 

what  may  be  called  provisional  (and  provisioning)  gov- 
ernment, could  never  again  resume  its  full  authority. 
Landowners  would  have  had  to  submit  their  land  to  the 
uses  of  the  community,  not  cultivating  it,  or  withholding 
it  from  cultivation,  as  they  pleased,  but  employing  it  so 
as  to  produce,  in  due  proportions,  the  greatest  amount  of 
the  necessaries  of  life.  The  provisional  ministry  of  agri- 
culture would  have  ordained  that  so  much  land  should  Ue 
in  pasture  for  the  due  supply  of  meat,  milk,  leather,  and 
wool,  so  much  land  should  be  devoted  to  cereals,  so  much 
to  root-crops,  so  much  to  fibres  (hemp  and  flax)  in  order 
to  repair,  so  far  as  possible,  the  disappearance  of  cotton 
and  silk — and  none  at  all,  that  could  be  made  productive, 
to  non-productive  uses.  During  the  period  of  stress,  the 
products  of  this  communal  agriculture  would  pass  into 
the  communal  stores,  thence  to  be  distributed  on  what- 
ever principle  the  government  might  determine — no  doubt 
a  confessedly  temporary  and  provisional  principle.  But 
when  the  time  of  stress  was  past,  can  it  be  supposed  that 
the  landlord  would  simply  resume  his  right  of  demand- 
ing a  tribute  for  the  mere  access  to  certain  portions  of 
his  land,  in  order  that  he  might,  at  his  leisure,  devote 
certain  other  portions  to  unproductive,  and  partly  de- 
structive, purposes  of  sport  and  recreation?  Assuredly  it 
is  not  to  be  supposed.  Remember  that  the  masks  and 
disguises  that  hide  the  realities  of  territorial  privilege 
would  now  be  stripped  oflf.  Men  driven  off  the  land 
could  not  emigrate,  for  there  would  be  no  place  to  emi- 
grate to.  They  could  not  herd  into  the  cities,  to  scratch 
a  precarious  subsistence  as  parasites  of  the  bloated  host 
of  machines;  for  mechanical  industry,  now  ministering, 
with  restricted  raw  material,  to  the  definite  demands  of 
a  county,  instead  of  the  indefinite  demand  of  the  world, 


2^8  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

would  very  soon  shrink  to  such  proportions  as  to  make 
the  amount  of  labor  required  accurately  measurable  and 
fairly  stable.  The  margins  and  safety-valves,  in  short, 
which  in  some  degree  relax  the  pressure  of  "the  landed 
interest"  upon  the  body  politic,  would  then  have  disap- 
peared, and  the  real  meaning  of  private  property  in  land 
would,  so  to  speak,  be  visible  to  the  naked  eye. 

Consider,  too,  that  the  influences  which  now  conspire 
with  and  bolster  up  "the  landed  interest"  would  then 
have  lost  much,  if  not  all,  of  their  power.  Capital,  al- 
most swept  out  of  existence  in  the  catastrophe,  could  not 
possibly  recover  a  tithe  of  its  volume  or  its  prestige.  Cut 
off  from  his  world-wide  market,  the  manufacturer  would 
be  unable  to  amass  huge  wealth,  to  adopt  a  princely  style 
of  living  as  natural  and  proper  to  his  class,  and  to  claim 
the  lion's  share  of  the  product  of  labor  as  the  just  reward 
of  his  grandfather's  or  great-grandfather's  "abstinence 
from  consumption,"  and  of  his  own  business  insight  and 
organizing  capacity.  No  longer  hoping  himself  to  take  his 
place  among  the  "landed"  aristocracy,  he  would  view  the 
claims  of  that  aristocracy  with  a  dispassionately  critical 
eye.  No  longer  able  to  pretend,  either  to  himself  or  to 
society,  that  the  management  of  his  business  demanded 
Napoleonic  genius,  he  would  be  the  more  readily  content 
with  a  reasonable  reward  for  such  capacity  and  energy 
as  it  did  actually  require.  No  longer  subject  to  the  temp- 
tations of  unhmited  display  and  luxury,  he  would  be  the 
less  likely  to  grudge  labor  the  opportunity  of  a  decent 
human  existence. 

Again,  let  us  remember  that  the  great  dividend-drawing 
class,  that  bulwark  of  Things-As-They-Are,  would  practi- 
cally have  ceased  to  exist.  This  is  the  class  which,  by 
dint  of  small  abstinences  and  pettifogging  parsimonies,  has 


THE  GREAT  ANALYSIS  339 

earned  the  right  to  exploit  indefinitely  the  labor  of  the 
world.  It  is  the  giant  expansion  of  enterprise — the  weav- 
ing all  over  the  earth  of  a  network  of  railways,  steamship 
lines,  telegraph  cables,  and  so  forth — which  has  enabled 
this  class,  in  initially  rich  and  thrifty  countries,  to  grow 
so  enormously.  But  the  villadom  of  Yorkshire  would 
now  be  cut  off  from  its  sources  of  supply.  Its  Fortuna- 
tus's  purse  would  be  snatched  from  its  grasp;  and  within 
the  county,  now  isled  in  space,  there  would  be  no  room 
for  such  a  rapid  expansion  of  enterprise  as  would  provide 
profitable  investment  for  new  savings,  even  supposing  sav- 
ing to  be  possible.  This  whole  class,  therefore,  would  find 
itself  willy-nilly  transferred  from  the  camp  of  Capital  into 
that  of  Labor,  and  its  influence,  if  it  came  to  a  question 
either  of  voting  or  of  fighting,  would  go  against  the  re- 
establishment  of  a  monopoly  in  land.  Further,  the  men- 
tion of  fighting  reminds  us  that  privilege  would  no  longer 
be  protected  by  a  standing  army.  We  have  put  aside 
as  highly  improbable  the  hypothesis  that  the  privileged 
few  would  have  the  presence  of  mind  to  intrench  them- 
selves from  the  outset  behind  a  force  of  lavishly  bribed 
mercenaries;  and  if  once  they  let  slip  that  opportunity — 
if  once  they  admitted  the  idea  of  organization  with  a  single 
view  to  the  general  weal— they  could  find  no  plausible 
excuse  for  the  maintenance  or  revival  of  the  military  pro- 
fession. The  armies  of  to-day  are  maintained  primarily 
and  ostensibly  to  guard  against  foreign  aggression;  but 
their  equally  real  though  not  commonly  avowed  function 
is  to  support  the  poUce  in  enforcing  the  rights  of  property. 
In  our  insulated  county,  far  from  the  madding  crowd  of 
jealous  nations  and  hostile  races,  there  would  be  no  pos- 
sibility of  foreign  aggression,  and  consequently  no  excuse 
for  maintaining  an  army  or  navy.    We  need  not  specu- 


340      COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

late  as  to  how  far  the  removal  of  these  burdens  would 
go  toward  the  restoration  of  economic  prosperity;  for  that 
is  not  the  present  point.  The  point  is  that  the  privileged 
classes  could  scarcely  come  to  the  coimty  government,  or- 
ganized for  the  general  welfare,  and  say:  "Your  measures 
are  threatening  our  privileges:  we  demand  that  you  shall 
withdraw  from  productive  employment  so-and-so  many 
thousand  men,  who  shall  protect  us,  by  aid  of  blood  and 
iron  if  necessary,  against  your  encroachments  upon  our 
ancestral  rights."  Such  a  demand  would  be  too  para- 
doxical for  consideration.  Moreover,  foreign  aggression, 
as  a  factor  in  the  problem  of  state,  being  once  for  all 
cancelled,  the  common  plea  for  an  endowed  aristocracy, 
that  it  gives  its  best  blood  for  the  defense  of  the  country, 
would  thereby  fall  to  the  ground.  All  those  partly  real, 
but  mainly  fallacious,  arguments  for  Things-As-They-Are, 
drawn  from  the  unstable  and  threatening  aspect  of  in- 
ternational relations,  would  lose  whatever  force  they  pos- 
sess. The  disruption  would  have  cleaned  the  slate  of 
these,  as  of  so  many  other,  prejudices,  sophisms,  hypoc- 
risies, illusions. 

A  clean  slate !  That  is  what  the  organizing  intelligence 
of  the  county  would  start  from  in  its  work  of  reconstruc- 
tion. I  am  conscious  that  in  the  foregoing  speculations 
I  have  now  and  then  suffered  my  own  prejudices  to  antic- 
ipate, by  implication,  the  reconstructive  work.  I  have 
spoken  as  if  the  slate  would  not  be  clean,  but  inscribed 
with  certain  foregone  ideas  and  principles.  This  has  been, 
I  believe,  inevitable;  but  it  has  in  some  degree  obscured 
the  true  purport  of  my  argument.  Let  me,  then,  repeat 
and  insist  that  I  do  not  set  up  for  a  sociological  prophet, 
and  do  not  take  my  stand  on  the  plausibility  of  any  de- 
tail in  my  forecast.    What  I  have  sought  to  do  is  simply 


THE  GREAT  ANALYSIS  341 

(for  purposes  that  will  presently  appear)  to  stimulate  the 
reader's  imagination  of  a  segregated  community,  limited 
in  size,  provided  with  all  the  mental  resources,  and  most 
of  the  material  equipment,  of  modem  science,  and  up- 
rooted, by  a  great  convulsion,  not  only  from  its  geograph- 
ical environments,  but  from  all  sorts  of  prejudices,  tradi- 
tions, and  habitual  forms  of  thought.  I  beg  the  reader 
to  conceive  such  a  community  recovering  from  its  first 
bewilderment  and  disarray,  and  settling  down,  on  the 
assumption,  as  nearly  as  possible,  of  the  "clean  slate," 
to  the  reordering  of  its  polity.  What  might  we  reasonably 
e^ect  to  be  the  process  of  that  reordering? 

IV 

"We  need  not  pause  to  speculate  upon  the  composition 
of  the  Organizing  Body,  or  the  method  of  its  appointment. 
It  would  either  be  a  very  small  Committee,  or  (more  prob- 
ably, perhaps)  a  Dictator  with  certain  councillors  or  as- 
sessors. At  any  rate,  we  assmne  that  some  group  of  men 
(and  women?)  capable,  not  merely  of  voting  "ay"  or 
"no"  on  a  cut-and-dried  proposition,  but  of  sustained 
and  accurate  collective  thinking,  is  intrusted  with  the 
task  of  planning  the  new  order  of  things,  with  a  view  to 
what  we  may  vaguely  describe  for  the  present  as  the 
Common  Weal. 

What  would  be  the  determining  feature  of  their  posi- 
tion, as  compared  with  that  of  any  of  the  Constituent 
AssembUes  of  history,  whether  in  Philadelphia,  in  Paris, 
or  elsewhere?  Surely  this:  that  they  would  be  confronted 
with  a  task  of  manageable  magnitttde.  They  would  have 
an  entire  and  perfect  globule  to  deal  with,  instead  of  a 
segment  of  a  globe.    From  the  poUty  of  this  globule,  many 


342      COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

of  the  most  perplexing  factors  of  globe-politics  would  (by 
hypothesis)  be  eliminated.  There  would  be  no  disparities 
of  race  or  color;  no  (real  or  imaginary)  superiority  of  one 
complexion  over  another;  no  tribal  antipathies  to  be  reck- 
oned with;  no  "backward"  peoples  to  be  brought  into 
line.  There  would  be  no  differences  of  languages  to  im- 
pede understanding,  and  create  misunderstanding,  between 
parish  and  parish,  between  Riding  and  Riding.  There 
would  be  no  ancestral  feuds,  no  historical  jealousies  of 
any  importance,  between,  one  region  and  another.  There 
would  be  no  artificial  barriers  between  region  and  region, 
making  it  seem  that  the  gain  of  one  must  be  the  other's 
loss,  and  that  the  only  way  to  enrich  yourseK  is  to  im- 
poverish your  neighbor.  As  there  would  be  no  possibil- 
ity of  aggression  from  without,  there  would  be  no  burden 
of  armaments,  and  no  military  caste  whose  prospects  of 
honor  and  advancement  lay  in  the  fomenting  of  bellicose 
feeKng.  There  would  be  no  great  differences  of  climate, 
begetting  such  differences  of  temperament  and  character 
as  could  not  possibly  be  reduced  to  a  common  measure. 
There  would  be  differences  of  reHgion,  no  doubt,  but  none 
so  aggressive  as  to  imperil  the  great  principle  of  "live  and 
let  Uve." 

The  problem,  in  short,  would  be  neither  interracial,  nor 
international,  nor  military,  nor  rehgious:  it  would  be 
simply  social  and  economic.  Which  means  that,  funda- 
mentally, it  would  be  a  problem  of  economics  alone,  but 
of  economics  viewed,  not  as  the  science  of  wealth,  but  as 
the  science  of  well-being. 

Now  it  would  not  be  overwhelmingly  difficult — it  would 
demand  no  superhuman  brain — to  co-ordinate  in  one  sur- 
vey all  the  elements  of  the  situation.  The  material  ele- 
ments would  be  pretty  easily  summed  up.    There  would 


THE  GREAT  ANALYSIS  343 

be  a  territory  of  so  many  thousand  acres,  divisible  into 
various  grades  of  fertility,  and  suited  in  such-and-such 
proportions  for  the  cultivation  of  such-and-such  products. 
The  actual  fertility  could  be  increased  by  known  methods 
of  intensive  cultivation  to  such-and-such  a  degree  in  such- 
and-such  a  time:  further  improvements  in  agriculture  and 
stock-breeding  might  be  vaguely  anticipated  but  must  not, 
for  the  moment,  be  counted  on.  The  ascertained  mineral 
resources  of  the  county  would  be  sufficient  for  so-and-so 
many  years  at  such-and-such  a  rate  of  consumption.  Spe- 
cialists would  have  to  be  consulted  as  to  the  likelihood 
that  further  stores  awaited  discovery,  or  that  science  would 
provide  substitutes  for  coal  before  the  known  veins  were 
exhausted;  and  policy  would  have  to  be  guided  by  what 
seemed  "the  better  opinion"  on  these  points.  An  almost 
complete  census  could  be  taken,  in  fact,  of  the  potentiali- 
ties of  the  county,  in  regard  both  to  those  forms  of  wealth 
which  reproduce  themselves  and  to  those  which  do  not; 
and  the  further  problem  would  be  to  regulate  their  pro- 
duction and  distribution  in  accordance  with  the  best  in- 
terests of  the  community. 

But  this  would  leave  the  crux  of  the  problem  untouched: 
What  are  the  best  interests  of  the  community?  What  is 
meant  by  the  phrase  used  vaguely  and  provisionally  above : 
the  Common  Weal?  Here  the  Constituent  Body  would 
have  to  embark  on  a  psychological  inquiry,  and  that  in 
two  branches:  First,  what  would  be  fundamentally  and 
ultimately  the  highest  good  of  the  community?  Second, 
what  instalment  of  that  highest  good  was  practicably  pos- 
sible, and  could  be  rendered  acceptable,  to  the  existing 
generation  ? 

The  inquirers  would  doubtless  be  met  on  the  threshold 
by  the  plausible  phrase,  "the  greatest  good  of  the  greatest 


344  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

number,"  and  would  fall  to  analyzing  it.  Should  they 
take  it  as  meaning  that  the  ideal  of  statecraft  should  be 
to  foster,  upon  a  given  territory,  "the  greatest  quantity 
of  human  life  that  it  could  be  made  to  support  in  fair 
material  comfort"?  Or  should  it  rather  be  held  to  imply 
''the  greatest  quantity  of  human  life  compatible  with  the 
highest  physical  and  spiritual  development  of  the  indi- 
vidual"? 

On  the  former  assumption,  their  course  would  at  first, 
at  any  rate,  be  comparatively  clear.  The  problem  would 
simply  be  to  utilize  to  the  utmost  the  food-and-warmth- 
producing  potentialities  of  the  county,  making  the  most 
of  every  cultivable  rood,  sacrificing  nothing  to  beauty,  and 
no  more  to  recreation  than  was  absolutely  necessary  in 
the  interests  of  health.  Agriculture  and  manufactures 
would  be  so  organized  that  every  able-bodied  person,  by 
a  short  day  of  labor,  could  support  himself  or  herself,  with 
a  certain  number  of  youthful  and  aged  dependants,  on 
something  like  the  present  scale  of  middle-class  decency 
and  comfort.  Education  would  be  strictly  utilitarian;  and 
while  science  would  be  treated  with  some  Uberality,  art 
would  dechne  to  the  level  of  the  cinematograph,  the  col- 
ored supplement,  and  the  novelette.  Existing  treasures 
of  painting  and  sculpture  would  be  gathered  in  Museums 
(such,  perhaps,  as  Castle  Howard  or  Wentworth  Wood- 
house),  but  they  would  probably  be  little  frequented.  A 
smug,  unidea'd  prosperity,  in  a  world  as  nearly  as  pos- 
sible divested  of  hope  and  fear  and  ambition,  would  be 
the  goal  of  statecraft.  When  once  the  routine  of  Ufe  was 
estabhshed,  the  chief  difficulty  would  be  to  maintain  the 
just  balance  between  population  and  subsistence;  for  the 
people  of  such  a  lubberland  would  probably  show  a  con- 
stant tendency  to  breed  beyond  the  margin  fixed  by  the 
established  standard  of  comfort. 


THE  GREAT  ANALYSIS  345 

If,  on  the  other  hand,  the  Organizing  Body  adopted 
the  second  interpretation  of  "the  greatest  good  of  the 
greatest  number,"  and  sought  their  ideal  in  intensity  of 
human  experience  rather  than  mere  quantity  of  human 
life,  their  task  would  be  very  much  more  complex  and 
difficult.  It  would  be  one,  not  of  more  scientific  adjust- 
ment of  mouths  to  means,  but  rather  of  artistic  social 
construction,  always  based,  of  course,  on  scientific  recog- 
nition of  material  and  psychological  facts.  It  would  be 
manifest  from  the  outset  that  no  dead  level  of  equality 
should  be  aimed  at.  No  man  should  have  the  right  to 
claim  tribute  from  another  for  access  to  his  fair  share  in 
the  reproductive  powers  of  nature,  or  should  be  enabled 
to  make  a  "corner"  of  private  ownership  in  mineral 
wealth.  But  equal  economic  opportunity  does  not  imply 
equality  of  social  service,  or  of  reward.  There  would  be 
a  clearly  marked  gradation  in  the  dignity  and  worth  of 
human  employments,  proportioned  to  the  rarity  of  the 
endowment,  and  the  arduousness  of  the  preparation,  de- 
manded for  them.  It  would  be  difficult,  no  doubt,  to 
measure  the  worth  to  the  community  of  artistic  products: 
there  would  always  be  lively  discussions  and  heart-burn- 
ings on  the  subject,  to  diversify  life:  but  some  workable 
method  would  assuredly  suggest  itself  when  the  need  arose. 
At  any  rate,  life-supporting  space  would  be  freely  sacri- 
ficed to  life-ennobling  space:  visible  beauty  and  adequate 
elbow-room  would  take  high  rank  among  the  necessaries 
of  existence;  and  the  reward  of  exceptional  service  to  the 
commonweal  would  be  found,  not  in  the  means  to  indulge 
in  ostentatious  and  senseless  luxury,  but  in  the  right  to 
lead  a  life  of  exceptional  spaciousness  and  dignity,  among 
exceptionally  beautiful  surroundings.  There  would  always, 
or  at  any  rate  for  many  generations,  be  a  majority  of 
mediocrity  in  the  state — a  populace  content  with  com- 


346  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

mon  employment,  and  its  common  reward  in  the  shape 
of  ordinary  comfort  and  pastime.  Whether  there  would 
ever  come  a  levelling-up,  which  would  bring  all  to  some 
sort  of  equality  on  the  heights,  is  a  subject  for  remote 
speculation;  but  there  would  be  no  need  for  a  levelling- 
down,  which  should  bring  all  to  a  flat  stagnation  in  the 
depths.  There  would  be  room  for  ambition,  room  for 
achievement,  room  for  renown.  Men  do  not  in  their 
hearts  beheve  in,  or  desire,  equality.  They  love  to  look 
up  and  admire :  so  much  so  that,  in  the  absence  of  what 
is  fine  and  noble,  they  will  admire  what  is  tawdry  and 
base.  They  do  not  desire  to  live  like  mites  in  a  cheese. 
When  once  they  can  all  live  like  human  beings,  they  will 
be  not  only  content,  but  happy,  that  the  master-spirits 
among  them  should  move  in  loftier  regions,  like  the  demi- 
gods of  old. 

And  in  such  a  polity  as  this,  where  elbow-room  was 
recognized  as  one  of  the  indispensable  conditions  of  the 
seemliness  of  life,  the  population  question  would  probably 
give  no  trouble.  How  far  eugenics  would  be  a  matter  of 
state  regulation,  and  how  far  it  would  be  left  to  the  growth 
of  enlightened  sentiment,  I  do  not  attempt  to  conjecture. 


Again  I  have  suffered  my  own  prejudices  and  precon- 
ceptions to  peep  through  rather  obtrusively.  But  again 
I  beg  the  reader  to  remember  that  they  are  not  the  essen- 
tial stuff  of  my  argument.  My  forecast  of  the  probable 
trend  of  thought  in  the  Organizing  Body  may  be  extremely 
shallow  and  unconvincing.  That  does  not  matter.  My 
purpose  was  not  to  persuade  the  reader — how  could  I? — 
that  the  Organizers  would  arrive  at  such-and-such  results, 


THE   GREAT  ANALYSIS  347 

but  simply  to  indicate,  in  broad  outline,  the  topics  of 
their  deliberations.  What  I  am  endeavoring  to  show  is 
that,  in  an  absolutely  isolated  community  of  the  size  of 
Yorkshire,  it  would  be  possible,  not  only  to  think  out  in 
detail  the  problems  of  the  commonweal,  but  to  place  the 
solutions  convincingly  before  the  intelligence  of  the  people, 
so  that  all  should  take  conscious  and  understanding  part 
in  whatever  experiments  of  social  organization  were  de- 
cided upon.  The  organization  should,  of  course,  be  con- 
fessedly experimental.  It  would  be  absurd  to  suggest  that 
any  human  intellect  or  intellects  could  think  out  a  sys- 
tem perfect  in  aU  its  parts,  that  could  be  made  to  func- 
tion smoothly  from  the  very  outset,  like  a  well-oiled 
machine.  Such  a  system,  indeed,  would  be  manifestly  im- 
perfect if  it  purported  to  be  rigid  and  to  possess  no  elas- 
ticity. There  would  be  room  for  a  thousand  afterthoughts 
and  readjustments.  No  one  can  absolutely  foresee  how 
the  human  character  will  react  to  untried  conditions.  But 
it  would  be  well  within  the  power  of  the  Organizers  to 
foresee  and  prepare  for  all  probable  eventualities,  and  even 
to  adjust  matters  so  that  the  readjustment  necessitated 
by  an  unforeseen  eventuality  might  be  effected  without 
throwing  the  system,  as  a  whole,  out  of  gear.  "Politics" 
would  thus  mean  rational  experimenting  in  the  light  in- 
stead of  wrangling  over  the  next  leap  in  the  dark.  The 
conditions  of  any  given  experiment  would  be  clearly  de- 
fined, its  results  accurately  measured  and  appraised. 
Where  there  was  no  conflict  of  class  interests,  and  no 
suspicion  that  one  party  or  group  was  trying  to  overreach 
another,  experiments  could  be  carried  out  with  a  single 
eye  to  the  commonweal,  and  a  dissenting  minority  could 
register  its  protest  without  turbulence,  claiming  to  have 
the  issue  tried  over  again,  under  certain  conditions,  and 


348  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

after  a  certain  time.  The  state  would  be  a  measurable, 
manageable  entity,  like  a  joint-stock  company  governed 
by  an  energetic,  clear-headed,  far-sighted  Board  of  Di- 
rectors. The  principle  of  what  is  known  in  America  as 
Scientific  Management  would  be  recognized  in  all  depart- 
ments— the  principle  that,  while  there  are  many  wrong, 
wasteful,  rule-of-thumb  ways  of  doing  a  thing,  there  is 
only  one  economical,  elegant,  right  way,  and  it  is  always 
worth  while,  by  patient  experiment,  to  ascertain  and  mas- 
ter that  process.  The  whole  community  would  be  con- 
sciously knit  together  in  a  league  for  the  commonweal; 
and  though  debates  would  arise  as  to  the  true  nature  of 
the  commonweal  in  this  case  and  in  that,  the  ever-present 
sense  of  soHdarity  of  interest  would  divest  them  of  acri- 
mony, malice,  and  destructive  passion. 

In  this  globule  and  microcosm,  in  short,  the  human 
intellect  would  be  able  to  grasp,  master,  control,  and 
mould  all  the  manifold  constituents  of  human  environ- 
ment, character,  and  destiny.  Man's  mind  would  view 
in  man's  terrestrial  lot  a  great  and  complex,  but  not  an 
utterly  overwhelming,  problem.  The  intellect  would  ap- 
proach its  task  with  the  confidence  of  a  sculptor  who  sees 
before  him  a  mighty  mass  of  clay,  yet  not  so  huge  as  to 
appall  and  paralyze  his  energies.  Already  he  divines  in 
the  vague  the  form,  the  symmetry,  to  be  evolved  from 
it;  and,  as  he  settles  to  his  toil,  his  nerves  thrill  with 
the  joy  of  plastic  energy.  He  knows  the  immutable  laws 
of  his  material;  and,  under  those  laws,  he  knows  that 
he  can  impress  on  this  rude  and  formless  mass  the  con- 
tours and  proportions  of  organic  life  and  beauty. 

[The  essay  now  returns  from  the  illustration-in-little  to  the  world,  from 
the  imaginary  globule  with  its  manageable  problem  to  the  real  globe  with 
its  immanageable  problem.    But  recognizing  "  that  it  is  only  a  difference  of 


THE   GREAT  ANALYSIS  349 

scale,  not  any  difference  of  essence,  that  distinguishes  the  real  from  the 
imaginary  problem,"  the  thinker  perceives  that  the  imaginary  problem 
forms  a  most  practical  analysis  of  some  of  the  real  troubles  of  the  world, 
troubles  which  neither  partisan  statesmanship,  nor  political  wars,  nor 
racial  supremacy  will  ever  settle.  Has  not  the  time  come  for  inaugurating 
other  methods?] 

What  is  wrong  with  the  world  is  its  vastness.  But  is 
there  no  hope  that  we  may  ever  reach  out  and  grapple 
with  this  immensity?  Has  not  the  time  come,  or  is  it 
not  at  hand,  for  a  Great  Analysis  and  co-ordination  of  the 
factors  of  the  world-problem?  Is  it  inconceivable  that 
some  encyclopaedic  brain  (with  lesser  intelligences  work- 
ing under  its  inspiration  and  control)  should  one  day  dis- 
entangle and  master  all  the  welter  of  terrestrial  resources 
and  potentiaUties,  as  we  have  supposed  the  Organizing 
Body  to  master  and  manipulate  the  resources  and  poten- 
tialities of  our  insulated  Yorkshire? 

I  do  not  for  a  moment  mean  to  imply  that  the  estab- 
lishment of  an  ordered  world-state  would  immediately  or 
very  quickly  follow  the  Great  Analysis,  and  the  theoretic 
forecast  of  a  world-order.  No  amount  of  taking-thought 
will  make  the  planet  other  than  unwieldy  and  hard  to 
manipulate.  Even  with  modern  methods  of  diffusion, 
thought-waves  spread  but  slowly,  and  action  lags  still 
farther  behind.  I  am  far  from  suggesting  that  the  most 
titanic  intellect  could,  in  a  decade  or  a  generation,  remake 
world-polity,  as  Mutsuhito  has  remade  the  polity  of  Japan. 
The  effect  of  the  Great  Analysis  would  not  be  revolution- 
ary. But  it  would  enable  statesmen  and  nations  to  look 
far  ahead,  instead  of  groping  along  in  the  tangle  of  af- 
fairs. It  would  teach  them  to  think  in  terms  of  centuries, 
instead  of,  at  most,  in  terms  of  one  or  two  decades.  At 
present  the  world  is  like  a  motor-car  without  headlights, 
feeling  its  way  by  night  along  a  road  beset  with  snags  and 


350  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

sloughs.  The  Great  Analysis  would  throw  a  mighty  beam 
far  into  the  future,  enabling  progress  to  forge  ahead  with 
a  new  speed,  a  new  purposefulness,  and  a  new  security 
from  quagmires,  blind  alleys,  and  precipices. 

[Note. — The  author,  though  writing  two  or  three  years  before  the  great 
European  war,  sees  very  clearly  that  among  the  factors,  eliminated  in  the 
case  of  a  planetary  Yorkshire,  which  enormously  complicate  the  affairs  of 
the  real  world — climate,  race,  religion,  nationality,  commercial  rivalry,  and 
war — war  is  by  far  the  most  important.  The  following  section,  on  the  re- 
lation of  the  Great  Analysis  to  war,  contains  a  brief  but  fundamental 
philosophy  to  which  no  makeshift  settlements  and  treaties  should  blind 
us.] 

VI 

There  remain  three  factors  in  the  world-problem  which 
were  absent  from  our  illustration-in-little,  but  are  enor- 
mously potent  in  the  planetary  scale.  They  are  Nation- 
ality, Commercial  Rivalry,  and  War. 

They  not  only  may,  but  must,  be  considered  together: 
for  the  one  includes  the  other,  like  a  nest  of  Chinese  boxes. 
Out  of  Nationality  springs  Commercial  Rivalry,  and  out 
of  Commercial  Rivalry,  War.  For  Commercial  Rivalry  it 
might  be  better,  perhaps,  to  substitute  a  more  general 
term — say,  Economic  Interest.  Thus  corrected,  the  above 
statement  is  almost  literally  exact.  Nationality  is  the 
great  bar  to  a  consolidation  of  Economic  Interests,  and 
scarcely  any  motive  is  nowadays  strong  enough  to  lead 
to  war,  unless  Economic  Interest  (real  or  imaginary)  comes 
in  to  reinforce  it. 

What,  then,  in  this  all-important  domain,  would  be  the 
work  of  the  Great  Analysis?  The  answer  is  ludicrously 
obvious:  to  analyze  the  idea  of  Nationality,  the  idea  of 
Economic  Interest.  Such  analyses,  it  may  be  said,  al- 
ready exist  in  plenty,  and  lead  to  the  most  conflicting  re- 


THE   GREAT  ANALYSIS  351 

suits.  Yes:  but  which  of  them  has  been  undertaken  on 
the  basis  of  exact  measurements,  under  the  rubrics  pro- 
vided by  a  complete  world-survey,  and  with  sufficient 
mental  detachment  from  the  very  objects  to  be  analyzed 
— Nationahty  and  Economic  Interest?  In  our  illustra- 
tive Yorkshire,  the  great  advantage  of  the  Organizing 
Body  lay  in  the  fact  that  the  disruption  had  uprooted 
all  sorts  of  prejudices,  traditions,  and  habitual  forms  of 
thought,  or,  in  other  words,  had  cleaned  the  mental  slate 
of  the  community.  The  very  first  step  toward  the  Great 
Analysis  would  be  for  those  engaged  in  it  to  undertake, 
in  their  own  persons,  a  similar  cleaning  of  the  mental 
slate.  This  could  not  be  effected  without  prayer  and 
fasting — without  an  intense  and  heroic  effort.  But  co- 
operation and  mutual  criticism  would  help,  each  investi- 
gator taking  the  beam  out  of  his  brother's  eye,  and  hav- 
ing the  mote,  in  turn,  removed  from  his  own.  Let  it  not 
be  objected  that  such  an  extirpation  of  prejudice  would 
mean  the  ignoring  of  one  of  the  decisive  factors  in  the 
problem.  A  man  may  cast  aside  his  own  prejudice  with- 
out forgetting  or  underrating  its  continued  hold  upon  his 
neighbor's  mind.  And,  the  object  of  the  whole  endeavor 
being  to  place  the  human  intelligence  at  a  point  of  view 
from  which  it  should  see  planetary  affairs  in  a  wider  and 
juster  perspective,  how  should  our  analysts  hope  to  lead 
others  to  that  point  of  view,  without  having  first  attained 
it  themselves? 

Can  it  be  doubted  that  there  is  ample  room,  not  to 
say  urgent  necessity,  for  what  Nietzsche  would  have  called 
a  revaluing  of  political  and  economic  values,  and  a  re- 
education of  our  principalities  and  powers  (individual  or 
collective)  in  the  light  of  that  "tariff -revision"?  Who 
has  hitherto  applied,  in  any  systematic  and  comprehen- 


'352  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

sive  way,  the  one  true  standard  of  appraisement:  to  wit, 
human  worth  and  well-being?  We  have  constantly  for- 
gotten the  end  in  our  clinging  to  temporary  and  make- 
shift means,  which  we  have  come  almost  to  deify,  as  or- 
dinances handed  down  from  heaven.  Many  of  us  even 
deny  and  deride  the  end,  while  we  are  prepared  to  vin- 
dicate with  fury  our  vested  interest  in  the  means,  as  they 
take  shape  in  this  or  that  institution  which  has  long  sur- 
vived any  utility  it  may  ever  have  possessed. 

What  is  the  general  characteristic  of  the  political  thought 
which  shapes  what  are  called  the  practical  politics  of  the 
world,  at  any  rate  in  the  international  domain?  Is  it  not 
an  amazing  short-sightedness,  amounting  in  most  cases  to 
absolute  inabiUty  to  look  more  than  a  few  years  ahead? 
The  great  statesman  is  not  he  who  gazes  far  into  the 
future,  but  who  sees  clearly  and  estimates  at  their  effec- 
tive (as  distinct  from  their  ideal)  worth  the  conflicting 
forces  of  the  present.  It  is  scarcely  too  much  to  say 
that  the  future,  in  any  large  sense  of  the  word,  does  not 
exist  for  the  political  mind.  The  future  at  which  the 
most  far-sighted  aims  is  only  a  slightly  reformed  pres- 
ent ("re-formed,"  sometimes,  in  a  retrograde  sense)  which 
is  to  be,  as  Euclid  says,  produced  to  infinity.  Mankind 
is  always  to  be  animated  by  the  same  stupidities  and 
cupidities,  the  same  traditions  and  superstitions.  The 
idea  that  the  future  must  be  something  immeasurably 
vaster,  and  may  be  something  immeasurably  wiser,  than 
this  groping,  elbowing,  snarling  present  of  ours,  has  never 
dawned  upon  the  political  mind;  much  less  the  idea  of 
fixing  the  view  on  a  saner,  nobler,  not  too  distant  future, 
and  going  forth  to  meet  it.  The  typical  diplomatist- 
politician  lives  from  hand  to  mouth,  on  a  set  of  ideas  so 
old  that  it  is  high  time  they  went  to  the  public  analyst, 


THE   GREAT  ANALYSIS  353 

who  should  report  as  to  whether  they  are  still  fit  for  human 
food. 

These  remarks  apply  mainly  to  international  politics; 
of  national  politics  it  is  possible,  in  some  cases,  to  draw 
a  less  gloomy  picture.  Even  a  small  measure  of  social 
justice  or  expediency  may  possibly  be  only  an  instalment 
of  a  larger  scheme,  present  to  the  statesman's  mind,  but 
not  yet  ripe  for  disclosure.  Perhaps  it  is  not  altogether 
too  optimistic  to  imagine  that  the  larger  scheme  may  in 
some  cases  be  based  on  a  philosophic  realization  of  the 
one  thing  needful — the  enhancement  of  the  worth  of 
human  life.  But  in  international  politics  who  can  trace 
the  faintest  glimmer  of  any  such  conception?  Statesmen 
may,  perhaps,  think  a  few  years  or  a  few  decades  ahead; 
but  their  schemes  are  inspired  by  sheer  national  egoism 
and  ambition,  expressing  itself  in  high-sounding  ready- 
made  phrases,  the  true  import  of  which  they  have  never 
sought  to  penetrate.  To  call  this  egoism  "national"  is, 
indeed,  to  flatter  it.  In  nine  cases  out  of  ten  it  is  essen- 
tially class-egoism  or  party-egoism,  which  has  given  no 
real  thought — though  it  may  pay  perfunctory  and  hypo- 
critical lip-homage — to  the  good  of  the  nation  as  a  whole. 
It  is  appalling  to  picture  the  condition  of  the  minds — 
the  fifteen  or  twenty  brains,  under  as  many  helmets  or 
shakos  or  ministerial  cocked-hats — in  which  the  immedi- 
ate destinies  of  Europe  are  at  this  moment  shaping  them- 
selves. Some  of  these  men,  no  doubt,  are  thoroughly 
well-meaning,  and  sincerely  bent  on  doing  as  little  harm 
as  possible.  But  is  there  one  to  whom  we  can  look  with 
the  faintest  gleam  of  hope  for  a  world-shaping,  world- 
redeeming  thought?  Is  there  one  who  has  shown  any 
sense  of  the  new  conditions  of  planetary  life,  the  vast 
new  issues  opening  out  before  the  human  race?    Is  there 


354     COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

one  whom  we  can  believe  to  have  thought  out,  sincerely 
and  competently,  the  meaning  of  the  phrases  on  which 
his  foreign  policy  is  based?  Is  there  one  from  whom  we 
could  with  any  confidence  expect  an  original  and  enHght- 
ened  view  of  his  own  country's  interests,  let  alone  any 
wider  outlook?  Is  there  one,  to  smn  up,  who  has  given 
proof  of  a  mental  caliber  at  all  commensurate  with  his 
power  and  his  responsibility?  If  such  an  one  there  be, 
he  is  certainly  not  among  the  active,  aggressive  "makers 
of  history,"  but  among  the  comparatively  passive  groups 
whose  part  it  is  to  look  on  and  try  to  prevent  the  worst 
sort  of  mischief. 

We  must  not,  however,  be  too  hard  on  our  purblind 
principalities  and  powers.  It  is  not  their  fault  that  they 
have  been  born  into  a  world  too  vast  and  complex  for 
their  rational  apprehension.  It  is  just  here  that  the  Great 
Analysis  must  come  to  the  rescue;  and  the  very  point  of 
my  argument  is  that  it  must  be  a  huge  co-operative  effort, 
even  if  it  be  organized  by  one  supreme  intelligence.  It 
would  be  fantastic  to  look  for  that  inteUigence  among 
the  Crowned  Heads  of  Europe. 

VII 

Perhaps  the  best  order  for  investigation  to  pursue  would 
be  to  start  with  the  innermost  of  the  Chinese  boxes,  and 
work  back  from  an  analysis  of  the  economics  of  war,  to 
the  larger  subject  of  economic  interest  in  general,  and  the 
still  larger  subject  of  nationality  and  the  price  we  pay  for 
it.  Who  gains  by  war?  Putting  aside  altogether  its  hor- 
rors and  agonies — assuming,  for  the  sake  of  argument, 
that  it  is  carried  on  by  insentient  puppets,  like  a  game 
of  chess — is  the  profit  of  even  a  successful  war  sufficiently 
large  and  sufficiently  distributed  to  make  it  worth  the 


THE  GREAT  ANALYSIS  355 

expense  and  toil  of  previous  preparation,  and  the  still 
greater  expense  and  toil  of  guarding  and  securing  what- 
ever advantage  has  been  gained?  I  am  far  from  taking 
it  for  granted  that  the  answer  to  this  question  would  nec- 
essarily be  a  sweeping  negative;  but  it  would  surely  ap- 
pear that,  in  these  days  of  fabulously  expensive  arma- 
ment and  apparatus,  and  ever  more  intricate  financial 
interrelations,  the  possible  advantages  of  war  to  any  class 
of  any  community  were  becoming  increasingly  dubious. 
The  Franco- German  War  is  commonly  cited  as  one  from 
which  the  victor  reaped  huge  and  conspicuous  gains.  The 
Franco-German  War,  be  it  noted,  took  place  nearly  half 
a  century  ago;  but,  even  so,  I  should  very  much  like  to 
see  a  searching  analysis  of  its  vaunted  profits.  It  is  true 
that  the  conditions  were  exceptionally  favorable  to  profit- 
mciking.  The  war  was  short,  the  collapse  of  the  enemy 
complete,  the  territorial  acquisition  large,  the  indemnity 
enormous.  But  was  the  territorial  acquisition  a  true  gain 
to  any  human  being?  Is  it  fair  to  attribute  the  indus- 
trial growth  and  expansion  of  Germany  wholly,  or  in  any 
determining  measure,  to  the  influence  of  the  war?  How 
many  times  over  has  the  indemnity  been  absorbed  by 
the  direct  and  indirect  expense  involved  in  guarding  the 
spoils?  And  is  the  account  yet  closed?  Even  if  the  bal- 
ance stands  to-day  somewhat  to  the  credit  side,  may  there 
not  be  huge  sums  of  compound  interest  to  be  paid  in  the 
future  for  those  months  of  inebriating  triumph?  As  one 
walks  the  streets  of  Berlin,  and  sees  at  every  corner  some 
bronze  colossus  sending  up  its  silent  shout  of  "Victory!" 
to  the  inscrutable  heavens,  one  wonders  how  the  German 
"philolog"  of  to-day  expounds  to  his  students  the  myth 
of  Nemesis. 

And  these  doubts  and  hesitations,  be  it  noted,  merely 
concern  the  question  of  gross  profits  as  recorded  in  col- 


356  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

umns  of  statistics.  The  Great  Analysis  would  be  a  fu- 
tility indeed  if  it  took  statistics  at  their  face  value,  and 
did  not  translate  them  into  terms  of  human  well-being. 
The  results  of  the  investigation  would  probably  be  still 
more  dubious  when  the  distribution  of  the  profits  came 
to  be  considered,  and  their  influence  upon  the  actual  worth 
of  human  life.  I  am  not  assuming  (as  some  people  do) 
that  the  dreamy,  idealistic,  provincial,  ante-bellum  Ger- 
man was  a  happier  or  a  better  man  than  the  hustUng, 
aggressive,  cosmopolitan  German  of  to-day.  The  idealist, 
in  so  far  as  he  existed  at  all,  was  probably  doomed  to  go 
under  in  the  mere  march  of  human  affairs,  war  or  no 
war.  What  I  do  suggest  is  that  investigation  might  pos- 
sibly show  that,  for  the  mass  of  the  German  people,  the 
stress  and  strain  of  life  had  increased  out  of  all  propor- 
tion to  any  increase  in  its  interest,  pleasure,  or  comfort — 
in  short,  in  either  its  spiritual  or  its  animal  satisfactions. 
It  would  not  improbably  be  found  that  the  French  mil- 
liards, in  so  far  as  they  reached  the  pockets  of  the  Ger- 
man people  at  all,  went  to  swell  the  tide  of  luxury  and 
vulgar  ostentation,  not  to  reheve  the  burdens,  or  dignify 
the  lives,  of  the  masses.  They  may  have  helped  to  make 
of  Berlin  a  flaunting,  swaggering,  champagne-bibbing  Eu- 
ropean capital,  in  place  of  the  unpretentious  Residenz  of 
old;  but  have  they  enhanced  the  general  worth  of  life 
for  the  bulk  of  the  German  nation?  The  efficiency  which 
one  so  often  admires,  not  without  envy,  in  Germany,  is 
no  product  of  the  war:  rather,  the  war  was  a  product  of 
the  efficiency.  As  for  the  rapid  growth  of  population,  we 
must  think  twice  before  we  accept  that  as  a  proof  of  gen- 
eral well-being.  It  is  often  the  most  miserable  household 
that  is  the  most  prolific. 
I  would  be  understood  as  suggesting  the  heads  of  a 


THE  GREAT  ANALYSIS  357 

possible  analysis,  not  forestalling  its  results.  It  is  quite 
probable  that  in  this  particular  instance — an  exception- 
ally favorable  one  for  the  believers  in  the  benefits  of  war 
— a  good  case  could  be  made  out  for  an  ultimate  balance 
of  profit.  Still  more  probably  might  it  be  demonstrated 
that,  with  an  unscrupulous  mock-Napoleon  seated  on  the 
throne  of  France,  war  was,  for  Germany,  the  less  of  two 
evils.  This  argimient  may  sometimes  be  advanced  with 
speciousness,  and  possibly  with  justice,  while  the  world- 
will  remains  at  sixes  and  sevens,  and  the  world-conscience, 
though  perhaps  moving  in  the  womb  of  time,  is  certainly 
as  yet  unborn.  But  that  only  brings  home  to  us  the 
urgent  necessity  for  a  systematic  effort  to  harmonize  the 
distracted  will  by  proposing  to  it  a  largely  conceived,  ra- 
tional design,  and  at  the  same  time  to  expedite  the  birth 
of  a  collective  conscience.  It  is  a  monstrous  and  intol- 
erable thought  that  civiUzation  may  at  any  moment  be 
hurled  half-way  back  to  barbarism  by  some  scheming  ad- 
venturer, some  superstitious  madman,  or  simply  a  pom- 
pous, well-meaning  busybody.  There  is  a  great  deal  of 
common  sense  in  the  world,  if  only  it  could  be  organized 
to  the  rational  end.  But  while  we  are  wholly  in  doubt 
as  to  whither  we  are  going,  it  is  no  wonder  if  we  quarrel 
as  to  how  we  are  to  get  there,  and  are  never  secure  against 
the  baneful  influence  of  crazes,  hallucinations,  sophistries, 
catchwords,  and  that  tribal  vanity  which,  under  the 
name  of  patriotism,  works  far  more  insidious  mischief 
than  personal  conceit. 

vm 

One  thing,  however,  I  do  venture  to  prophesy — namely, 
that  the  study  of  all  international  problems,  with  that  of 
war  at  their  head,  will  be  found  to  lead  back  to  the  one 


3S8     COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

great  problem — neither  national  nor  international,  but  fun- 
damental— of  the  distribution  of  wealth.  I  am  even 
tempted  to  lay  down  an  axiom,  to  this  effect:  "When 
the  profits  of  war  (if  any)  are  distributed  with  a  reason- 
able approach  to  justice,  no  one  will  any  longer  want  to 
make  war."  In  other  words,  the  profits  of  war — and  that 
term,  of  course,  includes  "armed  peace,"  with  its  ever- 
recurring  games  of  bluff  in  pursuit  of  some  economic  ad- 
vantage— the  profits  of  war  go  to  widen  the  gap  between 
the  "haves"  and  "have  nots."  They  may  give  room  for 
an  increase  in  the  numbers  of  the  proletariat;  they  do 
not  better  its  condition. 

We  are  back,  then,  at  our  starting-point.  We  find, 
after  reviewing  the  main  factors  of  compHcation,  that 
the  fundamental  problem  of  the  Great  Analysis  is  pre- 
cisely that  which  confronted  the  Organizers  of  our  hypo- 
thetical Yorkshire — the  estabUshment  of  a  reasonable 
equilibrium  between  the  resources  of  the  planet  and  the 
drafts  upon  them,  between  Commodities  and  Consump- 
tion, or,  in  the  most  general  terms,  between  Nature  and 
Human  Life.  It  is  evident,  if  we  only  think  of  it,  that 
such  an  equiUbrium  can  and  must  be  established,  unless 
the  history  of  the  world  is  to  be  one  long  series  of  oscilla- 
tions between  nascent  order  and  devouring  chaos.  Hith- 
erto, as  above  indicated,  the  necessary  data  for  the  equa- 
tion have  been  unattainable.  We  simply  did  not  know 
the  world  we  lived  in.  Now  that  we  possess,  or  are  in 
a  fair  way  of  attaining,  an  adequate  knowledge  of  the 
data,  we  cannot  too  soon  set  about  working  out  the  equa- 
tion— in  the  first  place  on  paper.  The  sooner  we  see  our 
way  (however  roughly  outlined)  to  a  rational  world-order, 
the  more  chance  is  there  of  preventing  a  catastrophic 
swing  of  the  pendulum. 


XXIII 

THE  UNITY  OF  HUMAN  NATURE  * 

JOHN  JAY  CHAPMAN 

If  one  could  stand  on  the  edge  of  the  moon  and  look 
down  through  a  couple  of  thousand  years  on  human  poli- 
tics, it  would  be  apparent  that  everything  that  happened 
on  the  earth  was  directly  dependent  on  everything  else 
that  happened  there.  Whether  the  Italian  peasant  shall 
eat  salt  with  his  bread  depends  upon  Bismarck.  Whether 
the  prison  system  of  Russia  shall  be  improved  depends 
upon  the  ministry  of  Great  Britain.  If  Lord  Beaconsfield 
is  in  power,  there  is  no  leisure  in  Russia  for  domestic  re- 
form. The  lash  is  everywhere  lifted  in  a  security  fur- 
nished by  the  concurrence  of  all  the  influences  upon  the 
globe  that  favor  coercion.  In  like  manner,  the  good 
things  that  happen  are  each  the  product  of  all  extant 
conditions.  Constitutional  government  in  England  quali- 
fies the  whole  of  western  Europe.  Our  slaves  were  not  set 
free  without  the  assistance  of  every  liberal  mind  in  Eu- 
rope; and  the  thoughts  which  we  think  in  our  closet  af- 
fect the  fate  of  the  Boer  in  South  Africa.  That  Tolstoi 
is  to-day  living  unmolested  upon  his  farm  instead  of  serv- 
ing in  a  Siberian  mine,  that  Dreyfus  is  alive  and  not  dead, 

'  An  address  delivered  before  the  graduating  class  at  Hobart  College  in 
1900.  Reprinted  from  Learning  and  Other  Essays,  through  the  courtesy  of 
John  Jay  Chapman  and  of  Messrs.  Moffat,  Yard  and  Company. 

359 


36o     COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

is  due  directly  to  the  people  in  this  audience  and  to  others 
like  them  scattered  over  Europe  and  America. 

The  effect  of  enlightenment  on  tyranny  is  not  merely 
to  make  the  tyrant  afraid  to  be  cruel;  it  makes  him  not 
want  to  be  cruel.  It  makes  him  see  what  cruelty  is.  And 
reciprocally  the  effect  of  cruelty  on  enlightenment  is  to 
make  that  enUghtenment  grow  dim.  It  prevents  men 
from  seeing  what  cruelty  is. 

The  Czar  of  Russia  cannot  get  rid  of  your  influence,  nor 
you  of  his.  Every  ukase  he  signs  makes  allowance  for 
you,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  the  whole  philosophy  of 
your  life  is  tinged  by  him.  You  beheve  that  the  abuses 
under  the  Russian  Government  are  inscrutably  different 
from  and  worse  than  our  own;  whereas  both  sets  of  atroc- 
ities are  identical  in  principle,  and  are  more  alike  in  fact, 
in  taste  and  smell  and  substance,  than  your  prejudice  is 
willing  to  admit.  The  existence  of  Russia  narrows  Amer- 
ica's philosophy,  and  misconduct  by  a  European  power  may 
be  seen  reflected  in  the  moral  tone  of  your  clergyman  on 
the  following  day.  More  Americans  have  abandoned  their 
faith  in  free  government  since  England  began  to  play  the 
tyrant  in  South  Africa  than  there  were  colonists  in  the 
country  in  1776. 

Europe  is  all  one  family,  and  speaks,  one  might  say, 
the  same  language.  The  life  that  has  been  transplanted 
to  North  America  during  the  last  three  centuries  is  Eu- 
ropean hfe.  From  your  position  on  the  moon  you  would 
not  be  able  to  understand  what  the  supposed  differences 
were  between  European  and  American  things,  that  the 
Americans  make  so  much  fuss  over.  You  would  say:  "I 
see  only  one  people,  splashed  over  different  continents. 
The  problems  they  talk  about,  the  houses  they  live  in, 
the  clothes  they  wear,  seem  much  alike.     Their  educa- 


THE  UNITY  OF  HUMAN  NATURE        361 

tion  and  catchwords  are  identical.  They  are  the  children 
of  the  Classics,  of  Christianity,  and  of  the  Revival  of 
Learning.  They  are  homogeneous,  and  they  are  growing 
more  homogeneous." 

The  subtle  influences  that  modern  nations  exert  over 
one  another  illustrate  the  unity  of  life  on  the  globe.  But 
if  we  turn  to  ancient  history  we  find  in  its  bare  outlines 
staggering  proof  of  the  interdependence  of  nations.  The 
Greeks  were  wiped  out.  They  could  not  escape  their  con- 
temporaries any  more  than  we  can  escape  the  existence 
of  the  Malays.  Israel  could  not  escape  Assyria,  nor  As- 
syria Persia,  nor  Persia  Macedonia,  nor  Macedonia  Rome, 
nor  Rome  the  Goths.  Life  is  not  a  boarding-school  where 
a  bad  boy  can  be  dismissed  for  the  benefit  of  the  rest. 
He  remains.  He  must  be  dealt  with.  He  is  as  much 
here  as  we  are  ourselves.  The  whole  of  Europe  and  Asia 
and  South  America  and  every  Malay  and  every  China- 
man, Hindoo,  Tartar,  and  Tagal — of  such  is  our  civili- 
zation. 

Let  us  for  the  moment  put  aside  every  dictate  of  relig- 
ion and  political  philosophy.  Let  us  discard  all  preju- 
dice and  all  love.  Let  us  regard  nothing  except  facts. 
Does  not  the  coldest  conclusion  of  science  announce  the 
fact  that  the  world  is  peopled,  and  that  every  individual 
of  that  population  has  an  influence  as  certain  and  far 
more  discoverable  than  the  influence  of  the  weight  of  his 
body  upon  the  solar  system? 

A  Chinaman  lands  in  San  Francisco.  The  Constitu- 
tion of  the  United  States  begins  to  rock  and  tremble. 
What  shall  we  do  with  him?  The  deepest  minds  of  the 
past  must  be  ransacked  to  the  bottom  to  find  an  answer. 
Every  one  of  seventy  million  Americans  must  pass  through 
a  throe  of  thought  that  leaves  him  a  modified  man.     The 


362  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

same  thing  is  true  when  the  American  lands  in  China. 
These  creatures  have  thus  begun  to  think  of  each  other. 
It  is  unimaginable  that  they  should  not  hereafter  inces- 
santly and  never-endingly  continue  to  think  of  each  other. 
And  out  of  their  thoughts  grows  the  destiny  of  mankind. 

We  have  an  inherited  and  stupid  notion  that  the  East 
does  not  change.  If  Japan  goes  through  a  transforma- 
tion scene  under  our  eyes,  we  still  hold  to  our  prejudice 
as  to  the  immutability  of  the  Chinese.  If  our  own  people 
and  the  European  nations  seem  to  be  meeting  and  surg- 
ing and  reappearing  in  unaccustomed  roles  every  ten  years, 
till  modern  history  looks  like  a  fancy  ball,  we  still  go  on 
muttering  some  old  ignorant  shibboleth  about  East  and 
West,  Magna  Charta,  the  Indian  Mutiny,  and  Mahomet. 
The  chances  are  that  England  will  be  dead-letter,  and 
Russia  progressive,  before  we  have  done  talking.  Of  a 
truth,  when  we  consider  the  rapidity  of  visible  change 
and  the  amplitude  of  time — for  there  is  plenty  of  time — 
we  need  not  despair  of  progress. 

The  true  starting-point  for  the  world's  progress  will 
never  be  reached  by  any  nation  as  a  whole.  It  exists 
and  has  been  reached  in  the  past  as  it  will  in  the  future 
by  individuals  scattered  here  and  there  in  every  nation. 
It  is  reached  by  those  minds  which  insist  on  seeing  con- 
ditions as  they  are,  and  which  cannot  confine  their  thoughts 
to  their  own  kitchen,  or  to  their  own  creed,  or  to  their 
own  nation.  You  will  think  I  have  in  mind  poets 
and  philosophers,  for  these  men  take  humanity  as  their 
subject,  and  deal  in  the  general  stuff  of  human  nature. 
But  the  narrow  spirit  in  which  they  often  do  this  cuts 
down  their  influence  to  parish  limits.  I  mean  rather  those 
men  who  in  private  hfe  act  out  their  thoughts  and  feelings 
as  to  the  unity  of  human  life;   those  same  thoughts  which 


THE  UNITY  OF  HUMAN  NATURE        363 

the  poets  and  philosophers  have  expressed  in  their  plays, 
their  sayings,  and  their  visions.  There  have  always  been 
men  who  in  their  daily  Ufe  have  fulfilled  those  intima- 
tions and  instincts  which,  if  reduced  to  a  statement,  re- 
ceive the  names  of  poetry  and  reUgion.  These  men  are 
the  cart-horses  of  progress;  they  devote  their  lives  to 
doing  things  which  can  only  be  justified  or  explained  by 
the  highest  philosophy.  They  proceed  as  if  all  men  were 
their  brothers.  These  practical  philanthropists  go  plod- 
ding on  through  each  century  and  leave  the  bones  of 
their  character  mingled  with  the  soil  of  their  civilization. 

See  how  large  the  labors  of  such  men  look  when  seen 
in  historic  perspective.  They  have  changed  the  world's 
public  opinion.  They  have  moulded  the  world's  institu- 
tions into  forms  expressive  of  their  will.  I  ask  your  at- 
tention to  one  of  their  achievements.  We  have  one  prov- 
ince of  conduct  in  which  the  visions  of  the  poets  have 
been  reduced  to  practise — yes,  erected  into  a  department 
of  government — through  the  labors  of  the  philanthropists. 
They  have  established  the  hospital  and  the  reformatory; 
and  these  visible  bastions  of  philosophy  hold  now  a  more 
unchallenged  place  in  our  civilization  than  the  Sermon 
on  the  Mount  on  which  they  comment. 

The  truth  which  the  philanthropists  of  all  ages  have 
felt  is  that  the  human  family  was  a  unit;  and  this  truth, 
being  as  deep  as  human  nature,  can  be  expressed  in  every 
philosophy — even  in  the  inverted  utilitarianism  now  in 
vogue.  The  problem  of  how  to  treat  insane  people  and 
criminals  has  been  solved  to  this  extent,  that  every  one 
agrees  that  nothing  must  be  done  to  them  which  injures 
the  survivors.  That  is  the  reason  we  do  not  kill  them. 
It  is  unpleasant  to  have  them  about,  and  this  unpleas- 
antness can  be  cured  only  by  our  devotion  to  them.    We 


364  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

must  either  help  the  wretched  or  we  ourselves  become 
degenerate.  They  have  thus  become  a  positive  means  of 
civilizing  the  modern  world;  for  the  instinct  of  self-preser- 
vation has  led  men  to  deal  with  this  problem  in  the  only 
practical  way. 

Put  a  Chinaman  into  your  hospital  and  he  will  be  cared 
for.  You  may  lie  awake  at  night  drawing  up  reasons  for 
doing  something  different  with  this  disgusting  Chinaman 
— who,  somehow,  is  in  the  world  and  is  thrown  into  your 
care,  your  hospital,  your  thought — but  the  machinery  of 
your  own  being  is  so  constructed  that  if  you  take  any 
other  course  with  him  than  that  which  you  take  with 
your  own  people,  your  institution  will  instantly  lose  its 
meaning;  you  would  not  have  the  face  to  beg  money  for 
its  continuance  in  the  following  year.  The  logic  of  this, 
which,  if  you  like,  is  the  logic  of  self-protection  under  the 
illusion  of  self-sacrifice,  is  the  logic  which  is  at  the  bot- 
tom of  all  human  progress.  I  dislike  to  express  this  idea 
in  its  meanest  form;  but  I  know  there  are  some  professors 
of  political  economy  here,  and  I  wish  to  be  understood. 
The  utiHty  of  hospitals  is  not  to  cure  the  sick.  It  is  to 
teach  mercy.  The  veneration  for  hospitals  is  not  ac- 
corded to  them  because  they  cure  the  sick,  but  because 
they  stand  for  love  and  responsibiHty. 

The  appeal  of  physical  suffering  makes  the  strongest 
attack  on  our  common  humanity.  Even  zealots  and  sec- 
taries are  touched.  The  practise  and  custom  of  this  kind 
of  mercy  have  therefore  become  established,  while  other 
kinds  of  mercy  which  require  more  imagination  are  still 
in  their  infancy.  But  at  the  bottom  of  every  fight  for 
principle  you  will  find  the  same  sentiment  of  mercy.  If 
you  take  a  slate  and  pencil  and  follow  out  the  precise 
reasons  and  consequences  of  the  thing,  you  will  always 


THE  UNITY  OF  HUMAN  NATURE        365 

find  that  a  practical  and  effective  love  for  mankind  is 
working  out  a  practical  self-sacrifice.  The  average  man 
cannot  do  the  sum,  he  does  not  follow  the  reasoning,  but 
he  knows  the  answer.  The  deed  strikes  into  his  soul  with 
a  mathematical  impact,  and  he  responds  like  a  tuning- 
fork  when  its  note  is  struck. 

Every  one  knows  that  self-sacrifice  is  a  virtue.  The 
child  takes  his  nourishment  from  the  tale  of  heroism  as 
naturally  as  he  takes  milk.  He  feels  that  the  deed  was 
done  for  his  sake.  He  adopts  it:  it  is  his  own.  The  na- 
tions have  always  stolen  their  myths  from  one  another, 
and  claimed  each  other's  heroes.  It  has  required  all  the 
world's  heroes  to  make  the  world's  ears  sensitive  to  new 
statements,  illustrations,  and  applications  of  the  logic  of 
progress.  Yet  their  work  has  been  so  well  done  that  all 
of  us  respond  to  the  old  truths  in  however  new  a  form. 
Not  France  alone  but  all  modern  society  owes  a  debt  of 
gratitude  to  Zola  for  his  rescue  of  Dreyfus.  The  whole 
world  would  have  been  degraded  and  set  back,  the  whole 
world  made  less  decent  and  habitable,  but  for  those  few 
Frenchmen  who  took  their  stand  against  corruption. 

Now  the  future  of  civil  society  upon  the  earth  depends 
upon  the  application  to  international  politics  of  this  fa- 
miliar idea,  which  we  see  prefigured  in  our  mythology  and 
monumentalized  in  our  hospitals — the  principle  that  what 
is  done  for  one  is  done  for  all.  When  you  say  a  thing  is 
"right,"  you  appeal  to  mankind.  What  you  mean  is  that 
every  one  is  at  stake.  Your  attack  upon  wrong  amounts 
to  saying  that  some  one  has  been  left  out  in  the  calcula- 
tion. Both  at  home  and  abroad  you  are  always  pleading 
for  mercy,  and  the  plea  gains  such  a  wide  response  that 
some  tyranny  begins  to  totter,  and  its  engines  are  turned 
upon  you  to  get  you  to  stop.     This  outcry  against  you  is 


366  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

the  measure  of  your  effectiveness.  If  you  imitate  Zola 
and  attack  some  nuisance  in  this  town  to-morrow,  you 
will  bring  on  every  symptom  and  have  every  experience 
of  the  Dreyfus  affair.  The  cost  is  the  same,  for  cold 
looks  are  worse  than  imprisonment.  The  emancipation 
of  the  reformer  is  the  same,  for  if  a  man  can  resist  the 
influences  of  his  townsfolk,  if  he  can  cut  free  from  the 
tyranny  of  neighborhood  gossip,  the  world  has  no  terrors 
for  him;  there  is  no  second  inquisition.  The  public  in- 
fluence is  the  same,  for  every  citizen  of  that  town  can 
thereafter  look  a  town  officer  in  the  face  with  more  self- 
respect.  But  not  to  townsmen,  nor  to  neighboring  towns, 
nor  to  Parisians  is  this  force  confined.  It  goes  out  in  all 
directions,  continuously.  The  man  is  in  communication 
with  the  world.  This  impulse  of  communication  with  all 
men  is  at  the  bottom  of  every  ambition.  The  injustice, 
cruelty,  oppression  in  the  world  are  all  different  forms  of 
the  same  non-conductor,  that  prevents  utterances,  that 
stops  messages,  that  strikes  dumb  the  speaker  and  deafens 
the  listener.  You  will  find  that  it  makes  no  difference 
whether  the  non-conductor  be  a  selfish  oligarchy,  a  mili- 
tary autocracy,  or  a  commercial  ring.  The  voice  of  hu- 
manity is  stifled  by  corruption:  and  corruption  is  only 
an  evil  because  it  stifles  men. 

Try  to  raise  a  voice  that  shall  be  heard  from  here  to 
Albany  and  watch  what  it  is  that  comes  forward  to  shut 
off  the  sound.  It  is  not  a  German  sergeant,  nor  a  Rus- 
sian officer  of  the  precinct.  It  is  a  note  from  a  friend  of 
your  father's  offering  you  a  place  in  his  office.  This  is 
your  warning  from  the  secret  police.  Why,  if  any  of  you 
young  gentlemen  have  a  mind  to  make  himself  heard  a 
mile  off,  you  must  make  a  bonfire  of  your  reputations 
and  a  close  enemy  of  most  men  who  wish  you  well. 


THE  UNITY  OF  HUMAN  NATURE        367 

And  what  will  you  get  in  return?  Well,  if  I  must,  for 
the  benefit  of  the  economist,  charge  you  with  some  selfish 
gain,  I  will  say  that  you  get  the  satisfaction  of  having 
been  heard,  and  that  this  is  the  whole  possible  scope  of 
human  ambition. 

When  I  was  asked  to  make  this  address  I  wondered 
what  I  had  to  say  to  you  boys  who  are  graduating.  And 
I  think  I  have  one  thing  to  say.  If  you  wish  to  be  useful, 
never  take  a  course  that  wiU  silence  you.  Refuse  to  learn 
anything  that  you  cannot  proclaim.  Refuse  to  accept 
anything  that  implies  collusion,  whether  it  be  a  clerk- 
ship or  a  curacy^  a  legal  fee  or  a  post  in  a  university. 
Retain  the  power  of  speech,  no  matter  what  other  power 
you  lose.  If  you  can,  take  this  course,  and  in  so  far  as 
you  take  it  you  will  bless  this  country.  In  so  far  as  you 
depart  from  this  course  you  become  dampers,  mutes,  and 
hooded  executioners.  As  for  your  own  private  character, 
it  will  be  preserved  by  such  a  course.  Crime  you  cannot 
commit,  for  crime  gags  you.  Collusion  with  any  abuse 
gags  you.  As  a  practical  matter  a  mere  failure  to  speak 
out  upon  occasions  where  no  opinion  is  asked  or  expected 
of  you,  and  when  the  utterance  of  an  uncalled-for  suspi- 
cion is  odious,  will  often  hold  you  to  a  concurrence  in  pal- 
pable iniquity.  It  will  bind  and  gag  you  and  lay  you 
dumb  and  in  shackles  like  the  veriest  serf  in  Russia.  I 
give  you  this  one  rule  of  conduct.  Do  what  you  will,  but 
speak  out  always.  Be  shunned,  be  hated,  be  ridiculed, 
be  scared,  be  in  doubt,  but  don't  be  gagged. 

The  choice  of  Hercules  was  made  when  Hercules  was 
a  lad.  It  cannot  be  made  late  in  life.  It  will  perhaps 
come  for  each  one  of  you  within  the  next  eighteen  months. 
I  have  seen  ten  years  of  young  men  who  rush  out  into 
the  world  with  their  messages,  and  when  they  find  how 


368  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

deaf  the  world  is  they  think  they  must  save  their  strength 
and  wait.  They  believe  that  after  a  while  they  will  be 
able  to  get  up  on  some  little  eminence  from  which  they 
can  make  themselves  heard.  "In  a  few  years,"  reasons 
one  of  them,  "I  shall  have  gained  a  standing,  and  then 
I  will  use  my  power  for  good."  Next  year  comes  and 
with  it  a  strange  discovery.  The  man  has  lost  his  hori- 
zon of  thought.  His  ambition  has  evaporated;  he  has 
nothing  to  say.  The  great  occasion  that  was  to  have  let 
him  loose  on  society  was  some  httle  occasion  that  nobody 
saw,  some  momen{  in  which  he  decided  to  obtain  a  stand- 
ing. The  great  battle  of  a  lifetime  has  been  fought  and 
lost  over  a  silent  scruple.  But  for  this,  the  man  might, 
within  a  few  years,  have  spoken  to  the  nation  with  the 
voice  of  an  archangel.  What  was  he  waiting  for?  Did 
he  think  that  the  laws  of  nature  were  to  be  changed  for 
him?  Did  he  think  that  a  "notice  of  trial"  would  be 
served  on  him?  Or  that  some  spirit  would  stand  at  his 
elbow  and  say:  "Now's  your  time"?  The  time  of  trial 
is  always.  Now  is  the  appointed  time.  And  the  com- 
pensation for  beginning  at  once  is  that  your  voice  carries 
at  once.  You  do  not  need  a  standing.  It  would  not 
help  you.  Within  less  time  than  you  can  see  it,  you  will 
have  been  heard.  The  air  is  filled  with  sounding-boards 
and  the  echoes  are  flying.  It  is  ten  to  one  that  you  have 
but  to  hft  your  voice  to  be  heard  in  California,  and  that 
from  where  you  stand.  A  bold  plunge  will  teach  you 
that  the  visions  of  the  unity  of  human  nature  which  the 
poets  have  sung  were  not  the  fictions  of  their  imagina- 
tion, but  a  record  of  what  they  saw.  Deal  with  the 
world,  and  you  will  discover  their  reahty.  Speak  to  the 
world,  and  you  will  hear  their  echo. 

Social  and  business  prominence  look  like  advantages, 


THE  UNITY  OF  HUMAN  NATURE        369 

and  so  they  are  if  you  want  money.  But  if  you  want 
moral  influence  you  may  bless  God  you  have  not  got 
them.  They  are  the  payment  with  which  the  world  sub- 
sidizes men  to  keep  quiet,  and  there  is  no  subtlety  or  cun- 
ning by  which  you  can  get  them  without  paying  in  silence. 
This  is  the  great  law  of  humanity,  that  has  existed  since 
history  began,  and  will  last  while  man  lasts — evil,  selfish- 
ness, and  silence  are  one  thing. 

The  world  is  learning,  largely  through  American  experi- 
ence, that  freedom  in  the  form  of  government  is  no  guar- 
antee against  abuse,  tyranny,  cruelty,  and  greed.  The 
old  sufferings,  the  old  passions,  are  in  full  blast  among 
us.  What,  then,  are  the  advantages  of  self-government? 
The  chief  advantage  is  that  self-government  enables  a  man 
in  his  youth,  in  his  own  town,  within  the  radius  of  his 
first  public  interests,  to  fight  the  important  battle  of  his 
life  while  his  powers  are  at  their  strongest,  and  the  powers 
of  oppression  are  at  their  weakest.  If  a  man  acquires  the 
power  of  speech  here,  if  he  says  what  he  means  now,  if 
he  makes  his  point  and  dominates  his  surroundings  at 
once,  his  voice  will,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  be  heard  instantly 
in  a  very  wide  radius.  And  so  he  walks  up  into  a  new 
sphere  and  begins  to  accompUsh  greater  things.  He  does 
this  through  the  very  force  of  his  insistence  on  the  im- 
portance of  small  things.  The  reason  for  his  graduation 
is  not  far  to  seek.  A  man  cannot  reach  the  hearts  of  his 
townsfolks  without  using  the  whole  apparatus  of  the 
world  of  thought.  He  cannot  tell  or  act  the  truth  in 
his  own  town  without  enlisting  every  power  for  truth,  and 
setting  in  vibration  the  cords  that  knit  that  town  into  the 
world's  history.  He  is  forced  to  find  and  strike  the  same 
note  which  he  would  use  on  some  great  occasion  when  speak- 
ing for  all  mankind.    A  man  who  has  won  a  town-fight  is 


370  COLLEGE  AND  THE  FUTURE 

a  veteran,  and  our  country  to-day  is  full  of  these  young 
men.  To-morrow  their  force  will  show  in  national  pol- 
itics, and  in  that  moment  the  fate  of  the  Malay,  the  food 
of  the  Russian  prisoner,  the  civilization  of  South  Africa, 
and  the  future  of  Japan  will  be  seen  to  have  been  in  issue. 
These  world  problems  are  now  being  settled  in  the  contest 
over  the  town-pump  in  a  western  village.  I  think  it  likely 
that  the  next  thirty  years  will  reveal  the  recuperative 
power  of  American  institutions.  One  of  you  young  men 
may  easily  become  a  reform  President,  and  be  carried  into 
oflSce  and  held  in  office  by  the  force  of  that  private  opinion 
which  is  now  being  sown  broadcast  throughout  the  coun- 
try by  just  such  men  as  yourselves.  You  will  concede  the 
utility  of  such  a  President.  Yet  it  would  not  be  the  man 
but  the  masses  behind  him  that  did  his  work. 

Democracy  thus  lets  character  loose  upon  society  and 
shows  us  that  in  the  realm  of  natural  law  there  is  nothing 
either  small  or  great:  and  this  is  the  chief  value  of  de- 
mocracy. In  America  the  young  man  meets  the  struggle 
between  good  and  evil  in  the  easiest  form  in  which  it  was 
ever  laid  before  men.  The  cruelties  of  interest  and  of 
custom  have  with  us  no  artificial  assistance  from  caste, 
creed,  race  prejudice.  Our  frame  of  government  is  drawn 
in  close  accordance  with  the  laws  of  nature.  By  our  docu- 
ments we  are  dedicated  to  mankind;  and  hence  it  is  that 
we  can  so  easily  feel  the  pulse  of  the  world  and  lay  our 
hand  on  the  living  organism  of  humanity. 


APPENDIX 

FOR   REFERENCE 
Chapters  I,  II.    Learning  to  Write 

Aydelotte,  Frank:   College  English,  "Writing  and  Thinking." 

Bennett,  Arnold:  Literary  Taste  and  How  to  Form  It;  How  to  Be- 
come an  Author;  The  Truth  about  an  Author;  Journalism  for 
Wom^n;   The  Author's  Craft. 

Goethe,  J.  W.:   Maxims  in  Prose;   Conversations  with  Bxkermann. 

Jonson,  Ben:    Timber  or  Discoveries. 

Joubert,  J.:   PensSes,  translated  by  Katharine  Lyttleton. 

Raleigh,  Sir  Walter:   Style. 

Stevenson,  R.  L.:  Memories  and  Portraits,  "A  College  Magazine"; 
Essays  of  Travel  and  in  the  Art  of  Writing. 

Symonds,  J.  A.:  Essays  Speculative  and  Suggestive,  "Is  Music  the 
Type  or  Measure  of  All  Art?" 

Thackeray,  W.  M.:  Roundabout  Papers,  "De  Finibus." 

TroUope,  A.:  Autobiography,  especially  chapters  II,  XII,  and  XIV. 

Chapters  III,  IV.    What  Is  College  Like? 

Corbin,  J.:    An  American  at  Oxford;   Which  College  for  the  Boy? 

Crawford,  Marion:  Greifenstein,  chapters  VI  to  IX — "Life  at  a 
German  University." 

Fitch,  G.:  At  Good  Old  Siwash. 

Flandreau,  C.  M.:    The  Diary  of  a  Freshman;   Harvard  Episodes. 

Gibbon,  Edward:  Memoirs,  the  section  on  Gibbon's  life  at  Oxford. 

Hill,  G.  B.:  Harvard  College,  by  an  Oxonian. 

Hughes,  T. :   Tom  Brown  at  Oxford. 

Johnson,  Owen:  Stover  at  Yale. 

Lange,  A.:  Oxford. 

Wallis,  W.  D. :  "  The  Oxford  System  versus  Our  Own: "  The  Ameri- 
can Oxonian,  January,  191 5  (2:5),  reprinted  from  The  Peda- 
gogical Seminary,  June,  191 2. 
371 


372  APPENDIX 


Chapters  V,  VI,  VII.    What  Is  College  For? 

Briggs,  Le  Baron  R.:   College  Life:   Girls  and  Education. 
Emerson,  R.  W.:   Representative  Men,  "The  Uses  of  Great  Men." 
Huxley,  T.  H. :   Science  and  Education,  "A  Liberal  Education  and 

Where  to  Find  It." 
Newman,  J.  H.:    The  Idea  of  a  University,  discourses  V  and  VII. 
Wilson,  Woodrow:    The  Spirit  of  Learning.     (Reprinted  from  The 

Harvard  Graduates'  Magazine  in  Essays  for  College  Men.) 
Wister,  Owen:  Philosophy,  4. 

Chapters  VIII,  IX.    College  Athletics 

Aydelotte,  Frank:   "Spectators   and  Sport,"  Indiana   University 

Alumni  Quarterly,  April,  1915  (2  :iii). 
Corbin,  J.:  An  American  at  Oxford,  pp.  255-271. 
Derby,  R.  A.:  "The  True  Object  of  Organized  Athletics,"  Outlook, 

October  5,  1907  (87  :  254). 
Stewart,  C.  A.:    "Athletics  and  the  College,"  Atlantic  Monthly, 

February,  1914  (113  :  153). 

Chapters  X,  XI,  XII,  XIII.    College  Interests  and 
Activities 

Arnold,  Matthew:  Discourses  in  America,  "Literature  and  Sci- 
ence." 

Caird,  John:   The  Study  of  Art. 

Eliot,  C.  W.:   Present  College  Questions. 

Huxley,  T.  H.:  Science  and  Education,  sections  VI,  VII. 

Hyde,  W.  D.:    The  College  Man  and  the  College  Woman. 

Rice,  Richard,  Jr.:  "The  Educational  Value  of  Co-education," 
Independent,  December  5,  191 2  (73  :  1304). 

Ruskin,  John:   The  Crown  of  Wild  Olive,  "Traffic." 

Stevenson,  R.  L.:  "On  the  Choice  of  a  Profession,"  Scribner's 
Magazine,  January,  191 5  (57  :  66). 


Chapters  XIV,  XV.    What  Is  Religion? 

Drummond,  Henry:   The  Greatest  Thing  in  the  World;  The  Natural 

Law  in  the  Spiritual  World. 
Emerson,  R.  W.:  English  Traits,  "Religion." 


APPENDIX  373 

Fiske,  John:  The  Destiny  of  Man;  The  Idea  of  God  as  Affected  by 
Modern  Knowledge ;   Through  Nature  to  God. 

James,  W.:   Human  Immortality. 

Myers,  F.  W.  H.:   Science  and  a  Future  Life. 

Santayana,  George:  Poetry  and  Religion,  "Understanding,  Imag- 
ination, and  Mysticism." 

Swift,  J.:   The  Tale  of  a  Tub. 

The  Message  of  the  College  to  the  Church,  a  course  of  Sunday  eve- 
ning addresses  in  Lent,  1901,  delivered  in  the  Old  South  Church, 
Boston. 


Chapters  XVI,  XVII,  XVIII,  XIX,  XX.    The  Purpose  of  Life 

Benson,  A.  C:  From  a  College  Window,  "Habits." 

Bryant,  W.  C:  "Thanatopsis." 

Emerson,  R.  W.:  Representative  Men,  "Napoleon";  Essays  (first 
series),  "Self-Reliance,"  "Intellect." 

Hyde,  W.  D.:  Self-Measurement. 

James,  W.:   The  Will  to  Believe,  first  two  essays. 

Johnson,  Samuel:    Rasselas. 

Roosevelt,  Theodore:  The  Strenuous  Life,  "Civic  Helpfulness," 
"Character  and  Success,"  "Brotherhood  and  the  Heroic  Vir- 
tues " ;  A  utobiography. 

Stevenson,  R.  L.:  Virginibus  Puerisque,  "El  Dorado,"  "The  Eng- 
lish Admirals,"  "Aes  Triplex,"  "Child's  Play." 

Tennyson,  A.:   "Locksley  Hall,"  "Maud." 

Vanderlip,  F.  A. :  Business  and  Education. 

Wordsworth,  W.:   "The  Character  of  the  Happy  Warrior." 


Chapters  XXI,  XXII,  XXIII.    A  Place  in  the  World 

Bagehot,  W.:   Physics  and  Politics,  "The  Use  of  Conflict."  "The 

Age  of  Discussion." 
Bennett,  Arnold:    The  Author's  Craft,  "Seeing  Life." 
Burke,  Edmund:    Thoughts  on  the  Present  Discontents;  Letter  to  the 

Sheriffs  of  Bristol;  Reflections  on  the  Revolution  in  France,  the 

section  on  "  Conservative  Reform." 
James,  W. :   The  Moral  Equivalent  of  War. 
Murray,  G. :  Is  War  Necessary  ? 
Spencer,  Herbert:    "Progress:    Its  Law  and  Cause,"  Westminster 

Review,  April,  1857. 
Wallas,  Graham:    The  Great  Society,  Introduction,  etc.;   Human 


374  APPENDIX 

Nature  in  Politics,  Part  II,  "Official  Thought,"  "Nationality 
and  Humanity." 
Wells,  H.  G.:  Mankind  in  the  Making,  "The  Cultivation  of  the 
Imagination";  First  and  Last  Things,  especially  Book  II; 
Anticipations,  "The  Larger  Synthesis,"  "Faith,  Morals,  and 
Public  Policy  in  the  Twentieth  Century," 


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